By Scott Gilfoid: IBF/WBA super middleweight champion Carl Froch has been given his marching orders by the International Boxing Federation, telling him that he has 30 days to start negotiating a fight against #1 IBF James DeGale (20-1, 14 KOs) for a fight in early 2015.
It doesn’t look like Froch is going to take that fight, so we can expect him to be either stripped of his title or vacate the strap. This leaves DeGale with the unfortunate task of facing #7 IBF Andre Dirrell (24-1, 16 KOs) for the vacant IBF strap.
This is going to be a really difficult fight for DeGale because Dirrell is a lot faster than him, and he’s able to do everything that DeGale can do but much better. Dirrell’s hand speed and power are going to result in him being able to land with a lot of clean bombs in each round. We’ll likely see DeGale marking up quickly around his face.
We’ll also see DeGale backing up to the ropes like he generally always does in his fights. Dirrell will then be able to tee off at will with his power shots. I don’t expect DeGale to be able to take the kind of punishment that Dirrell’s last opponent Derek Edwards was able to take in his 12 round decision loss to Dirrell last December.
DeGale hasn’t been knocked out yet, but I can definitely see him getting dropped and stopped by Dirrell in this fight. Dirrell is just too good in my view, and I see this fight as going really badly for him if he decides to take it.
There has been a number of fans of #3 IBF George Groves that have chimed in that he should be able to fight for the IBF title if Froch vacates, because he’s ranked higher than Dirrell. Groves, however, has already fought in the WBC’s super middleweight title eliminator bout and won it over Christopher Rebrasse.
Groves is now the WBC mandatory challenger for WBC champion Anthony Dirrell, the younger brother of Andre Dirrell. Groves says he wants to take that fight with Anthony. Of course, he can change his mind so that he can try and get in front of Andre Dirrell to be the one to face DeGale for the vacant IBF title, but I don’t think Groves will do that. He’s not said a word about wanting to take that fight with DeGale, which is kind of strange given that he already beat him four years ago in 2011, albeit by a controversial decision.
It would seem painfully obvious that Groves matches up better with DeGale than he does against Anthony Dirrell, and that would be the smarter fight for Groves to take right now rather than him risking another knockout. I personally don’t think Groves can beat either DeGale or Dirrell, because he seems to have aged in terms of ring wear from his two fights against Froch and his fights against Rebrasse and Denis Douglin.
Those fights took a lot out of Groves, and I don’t see him lasting more than five rounds against Anthony. DeGale is a different story though because he’s not much of a puncher.
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