Froch: I might fight DeGale if he beats Dirrell and looks good

By Boxing News - 04/14/2015 - Comments

dirrell445By Scott Gilfoid: WBA 168lb champion Carl Froch says he’ll possibly give #1 IBF James DeGale (20-1, 14 KOs) a fight if DeGale defeats #2 IBF Andre Dirrell (24-1, 16 KOs) next month in their fight for Froch’s old IBF super middleweight title on May 23rd at the Agganis Arena, in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

The only thing the 29-year-old DeGale has to do is beat Dirrell and look good doing so. It’s easier said than done. The fact of the matter is that DeGale’s chances of beating Dirrell are slim, and his chances of looking good in doing so are even slimmer.

Given that DeGale would likely be stomped by Froch and that Dirrell defeated Froch with ease in a one-sided fight in the minds of a lot of boxing fans, I can’t see DeGale having any luck against a talent like Dirrell on May 23rd.

Froch is now saying that he vacated his IBF title due to him not wanting to slow DeGale’s progress towards getting a title shot. He also says he was injured as well. That really kind of Froch to vacate his IBf title just so that DeGale could get a title shot. I hadn’t realized that he and DeGale were close.

“James DeGale is fighting one of my old victims Andre Dirrell for the belt that I vacated and I wish him all the best,” Froch said via Zootoday.com. I hurt my arm quite badly training for Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. DeGale was my mandatory and I didn’t want to hold him up so I vacated the belt. I want him to go to America and bring the belt back to England. If he beats Dirrell and looks good then I might end up fighting him, who knows.”

I wonder if Froch will give the same invitation for a fight if Dirrell turns around and blanks DeGale or knocks him out. Will Froch fight Dirrell if he whips DeGale, or is Froch only interested in facing DeGale and not Dirrell? I mean, I can totally understand why Froch would want to fight DeGale rather than Dirrell.

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Froch already found out the hard way that he didn’t have the speed to match-up against Dirrell in their fight in 2009, and it would seem like a bad idea for Froch to get back in the ring with Dirrell now.

Dirrell has gotten better while Froch has gotten older. Dirrell seemingly has more punching power now than he did in his 20s when he fought Froch, and he’s a lot more offensive-minded. Dirrell would have a great chance of giving Froch a boxing lesson if they fought each other now. DeGale is slow, flat-footed and more of a slapper than a puncher. It’s quite understandable that Froch want to fight him.

It almost sounds like Froch wants DeGale to do his dirty work by beating Dirrell, a fighter that Froch failed to beat without a whole lot of controversy with him getting a win over Dirrell in his own hometown of Nottingham, UK. It would be nice if Froch were to try and be the one to beat Dirrell instead of him asking DeGale to do the job.

Froch says he’s now glad that he fought George Groves twice because he made a lot of money from those fights, although he still doesn’t like him.

“The thing with George Groves was genuine,”Froch said. “He’s an obnoxious little… I don’t like him. But he’s my best mate now, because without him, I wouldn’t have had my day at Wembley. He was the perfect foil and he made me a fortune!”

Before his two fights against Froch, Groves was an inexperienced fighter who had never faced the top rungs of the super middleweight division before. You can’t really call Groves a domestic level fighter at that point in his career, but I think he was more of at the European level in terms of ability rather than at the world class level. Froch merely showed that Groves didn’t deserve to be in the ring with him in stopping him twice. Now it’s going to be WBC champion Anthony Dirrell’s turn to do the same thing against Dirrell. I see Dirrell getting a stoppage win over Groves unless Groves runs from him for 12 rounds. I think Dirrell is going to knock Groves out cold and beat him much worse than Froch did.



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