By Scott Gilfoid: British promoter Eddie Hearn is expecting his fighter James DeGale to make history on April 25th when he battles American Andre Dirrell in a fight for the vacant IBF super middleweight title.
Hearn thinks DeGale will be the talented Dirrell to win the IBF title, and in the process become the first British Olympian to win a world title. Oddly enough, it’s never been done before by one of the British Olympic fighters for some reason, and Hearn thinks that out of all the British fighters that have tried and failed, DeGale will be the one guy to accomplish it.
To be sure, DeGale’s chances are increased by the sheer volume of 168 pound titles out there for him to grab. I mean, look at the World Boxing Association with their two champions in one weight division.
We’re talking about five potential titles that DeGale can fight for at super middleweight, and I’m not even talking about the interim straps, which some boxing fans count as a world title.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onvnmTZwzJ4
“On April 25th, I believe James DeGale will make history to become the first British Olympian to win a world title,” Hearn said via IFL TV.
Well, I hope Hearn continues to repeat his mantra of DeGale beating Dirrell to win the IBF title, because I think DeGale is going to need every little bit of positive energy he can get for him to have a chance of beating the faster, stronger, and more experienced Dirrell to win the IBF title.
The way I see it, Dirrell is better than DeGale in every facet of the game. I mean, I got to call it the way I see it. I think DeGale is a fine domestic level fighter. He proved that in his fight against George Groves in 2011 when he was beaten by him by a narrow margin. However, DeGale lost that fight, and that kind of showed his limits as a fighter.
DeGale is too flat footed, too stationary, too slow and too easy to hit for him to be able to beat a guy like Dirrell. That’s not to say that there aren’t guys in the super middleweight division that he can still beat, but I just don’t think that Dirrell is one of them.
Hearn was really counting on being able to coax Groves into facing DeGale on April 25th instead of DeGale fighting Dirrell. If Groves gave the green light to the DeGale fight, Hearn was going to give Dirrell a step aside offer of money and the option of fighting on the Groves-DeGale undercard on April 25th.
So instead of Dirrell fighting for a world title, he would be watching Groves and DeGale fight for the IBF strap with the promise that he’d get to face the winner.
I think it would have been a terrible deal for Dirrell unless Hearn were to give Dirrell a large step aside payment because it seems like a much better deal for Dirrell to be fighting for the vacant IBF title with him getting a 50-50 purse split as mandated by the IBF rather than facing DeGale or Groves with them the champion and Dirrell just the challenger.
That purse split would then likely go from a 50-50 deal to something tilted far into the favor of Groves or DeGale.
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