By Scott Gilfoid: Sky commenter Jamie Moore thinks #1 IBF James DeGale has improved considerably since his loss to George Groves four years ago in 2011. Moore sees DeGale as a well-rounded professional fighter, and no longer fighting with the same slapping style that he showed after he turned pro in 2009.
Moore sees DeGale as being sharp enough now to defeat American #2 IBF Andre Dirrell in their fight on April 25th for the vacant International Boxing Federation title. This is the belt that Carl Froch recently vacated.
“I think he’s picked up enough experience and improved enough since the Groves fight to beat Dirrell, who is the sort of southpaw that fights scared,” Moore said to Skysports.com. “To me, people who fight in that style don’t like to get involved and get hit.”
Moore sounds like he’s only watched one fight of Dirrell’s entire career and that was the Froch fight in 2009. Dirrell did a great job of making Froch miss and not getting hit.
Dirrell was able to pick Froch off in every round and fight well enough to deserve a one-sided round decision. One judge gave the fight to Dirrell, whereas the other two judges scored it for Froch. I had Dirrell winning the fight 8 rounds to 3 with 1 even.
“I think he’ll find that James DeGale will be able to land shots that other fighters can’t, because he’s had such a good amateur background and fought so many southpaws over the years,” Moore said.
DeGale ha been able to land his shots against the weak opposition that he’s been fighting since his loss to Groves, but I don’t see DeGale being able to land his punches at the much faster and arguably more talented defensive artist Dirrell. If you see the two guys fight, Dirrell is the much faster fighter with the better power compared to DeGale.
The two fighters are worlds apart in terms of hand speed. DeGale has been able to beat guts like Dyah Davis, Marco Antonio Periban and Brandon Gonzales, but he’s not fought no one that you can call a good fighter. DeGale has been matched up against a lot of fighters that have made him look good due to their lack of talent. That’s why I see him being brought back down to earth when he gets inside the ring with Dirrell.
I don’t see any improvement in DeGale’s game since his loss to Groves. To me, he looks like the same fighter he was when he was beaten by Groves in 2011. The only difference is that DeGale looks slower now than he was back then.
“A lot of southpaws rely on their awkwardness to nick a decision. Dirrell has made a career out of that and I think he’ll come unstuck against DeGale,” Moore said.
Dirrell is actually not a southpaw. It looks like Moore has Andre Dirrell mixed up with his brother Anthony Dirrell. He’s the southpaw, not Andre. I don’t blame Moore for getting confused about the Dirrell brothers, because a lot of people. However, Andre Dirrell fights out of the orthodox stance, but lately he’s been fighting a lot using the southpaw stance in order to develop that part of his game. Indeed, in Andre’s last fight against Derek Edwards, Dirrell fought almost exclusively out of the southpaw stance. Dirrell fought so well from the southpaw stance that you couldn’t tell the difference from him fighting in the past out of the orthodox stance. He totally dominated Edwards from start to finish.
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