Anthony Dirrell vs. Badou Jack tomorrow night on 4/24

By Boxing News - 04/23/2015 - Comments

dirrell-yamada442(Photo credit: Sumio Yamada) By Scott Gilfoid: Tomorrow night on Friday, WBC super middleweight champion Anthony Dirrell (27-0-1, 22 KOs) will be looking to show off his boxing skills and huge punching power against the hard-hitting and talented Badou “The Ripper” Jack (18-1-1, 12 KOs) on the same card as WBA middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs (28-1, 25 KOs) vs. Caleb “Golden” Truax (25-1-2, 15 KOs) at the UIC Pavilion in Chicago, Illinois.

Dirrell-Jack and Jacobs-Truax fights will be televised on Spike TV on the Premier Boxing Champions series.

Jack, who comes from Sweden and lives in Las Vegas, Nevada, is an opponent that Dirrell is getting out of the way as part of a voluntary defense. This fight is more of a warm-up for Dirrell to get him prepared for a bigger fight against George Groves in the summer. When I say bigger, I mean bigger money, but not necessarily any tougher of an opponent.

I think Jack and Groves are pretty similar in terms of ability and overall talent. But none the less, Dirrell has to get the Jack fight out of the way before he faces Groves in a mandatory defense.

“Badou Jack is a good fighter and it’s going to be a helluva show but I just hope he doesn’t run like he’s been doing in his last few fights,” Dirrell said during the final press conference on Wednesday. “I want him to stand in there and we’ll see whose better. I’m going to test his chin like nobody else has.”

The one thing that Dirrell can count on with Badou Jack is that he’s going to be there standing in front of him looking to slug it out for as long as the fight lasts. Dirrell won’t have to go chasing him down in order to try and punch his lights out because Jack will be standing directly in front of him for as long as this fight lasts.

Dirrell has had some major problems in the past that kept out of the ring for a long period of time. He had to fight off cancer. In 2012, Dirrell was injured in a motorcycle accident. It’s a testament to Dirrell’s strong will that he was able to come back from these two things to continue his career and go on to capture a world title at 168.

“His [Dirrell] team likes to bark and talk a lot of trash but they can’t fight for him,” Jack said. “Come Friday night it’s just going to be the two of us in the ring. He (Dirrell) called me out on Instagram telling me to bring everything I got. Trust me, he don’t have to worry.”

Jack was stopped in the 1st round by Derek Edwards last year in a fight that he was expected to win. It was a case of Jack getting hit by a shot that he didn’t see coming. Perhaps if he didn’t get nailed with that shot, he might have been able to continue on to defeat Edwards, but unfortunately we’ll never know. It would be nice to see Jack face Edwards in the future so that he can try to avenge the loss. Jack has won his last two fights since the loss to Edwards and he’s looked very good.



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