DeGale-Dirrell purse bid won by Warriors Boxing

By Boxing News - 03/10/2015 - Comments

By Scott Gilfoid: #1 IBF James DeGale (20-1, 14 KOs) and his promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Sport came up short on Tuesday in losing the purse bid for a fight against #2 IBF Andre Dirrell (24-1, 16 KOs). Warriors Boxing won the bid with a winning bid of $3.1 million, according to Dan Rafael. It’ll be a 50-50 purse split of the loot. The Dirrell vs. DeGale fight will be for Carl Froch’s vacant IBF super middleweight title.

Al Haymon, the adviser for Dirrell, works with Warriors Boxing, so this means that we’ll likely be seeing the Dirrell-DeGale fight taking place in the United States this April on NBC as part of the Premier Boxing Champions league.

Hearn’s bid of $2.105 million was short of the mark offered by Warriors with their $3.1 million.

YouTube video

This is obviously a huge blow to Hearn and DeGale, as Hearn was hoping to stage the DeGale vs. Dirrell fight on April 25th at the O2 Arena in London, UK, along with the Lee Selby vs. Evgeny Gradovich and Anthony Joshua vs. Kevin Johnson fights. But more importantly, DeGale would have likely had a much better chance of beating Dirrell if the fight were staged in the UK than in the U.S, because DeGale would have had the crowd on his side, and it’s possible that DeGale might have been given a controversial decision like the one Carl Froch won over Dirrell in their fight in Nottingham, UK in 2009.

Haymon now has a great fight to stage in the U.S on his Premier Boxing Champion league on NBC. I can see a Dirrell-DeGale fight bringing in huge ratings with as many as 5 million viewers watching the fight if it gets marketed correctly. The card will need some other quality fighters to help make it a bigger event.

It’d like to see the Dirrell vs. DeGale card coupled with WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder. However, Wilder has a hand injury that he suffered during his recent fight against Bermane Stiverne, and he’s not going to be ready to fight in April. Haymon has enough talented fighters in his huge stable to make the Dirrell-DeGale card a tremendous one.

This a great chance for Dirrell to pick up a huge amount of new boxing fans, given that the fight will be watched by millions of viewers on free television in America. A lot of these fans will have never seen Dirrell before, so it’s going to be a real treat for them to see his talent for the first time, and then become fan of his.

Dirrell has a good opponent in DeGale, and he’ll be able to show off his stuff in front of the millions of fans watching the fight in the U.S. Believe me, this won’t be like the Adrien Broner vs. John Molina fight, because Dirrell will make it exciting the entire fight.

DeGale will have no choice but to fight tooth and nail, otherwise he’s going to get mowed down. Dirrell isn’t going to take it easy on DeGale the same way Broner took it easy on Molina. Dirrell will be firing off shots for three minutes of each and every round, and he’s going to make it exciting.

If Dirrell can defeat DeGale this April, then there will be two Dirrell brothers holding down world titles in the super middleweight division. Dirrell’s younger brother Anthony Dirrell is the WBC super middleweight champion. He’s got a fight coming up on April 24th against Badou Jack.



Comments are closed.