By David Lahr: The World Boxing Conference put out the following statement about a potential rematch between WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch and American challenger Andre Direll: “if a rematch could be scheduled without interfering with the [Super Six] tournament it will be approved. If it cannot then Dirrell will become the mandatory challenger after the tournament has finished..” This is all well and good, but the chances of their being a rematch while the tournament takes place are remote at this time. Froch has an upcoming match against Mikkel Kessler and Dirrell will be facing Arthur Abraham.

There is no time to get in a rematch between Dirrell and Froch before that, nor will there be any time to get a rematch in after. Under the best of circumstances, a rematch between Froch and Dirrell likely won’t be able to take place until the Super Six tournament is well over, probably by 2011. By then, Froch might not be the WBC super middleweight champion any longer, so what’s the point in Froch and Dirrell fighting?

Froch will be 34 by then, and Dirrell 29. Froch will be older, possibly minus his title and there won’t be as much interest in boxing fans seeing the fight. The same goes for Dirrell. If he does badly in the rest of the Super Six tournament, what point will there be in seeing him fight Froch in 2010 or 2011? Both fighters would be seen as tarnished if they don’t excel in the rest of the Super Six tournament. It might make for a good fight for fans, but it won’t have the appeal that it would if an immediate rematch took place at this time while the interest is still there.

If Dirrell does become a mandatory, it could be for Kessler, who is predicted to win the Super Six tournament. Again, it won’t be much of a big deal if Dirrell is beaten by Abraham and Andre Ward, Dirrell’s next two opponents in the Super Six tournament.

Dirrell narrowly lost a 12 round split decision to Froch on October 17th in a fight that was held in Nottingham, England, Froch’s home city and country. Froch was the aggressor throughout the fight, but not necessarily the effective aggressor. Although Froch came forward most of the fight, he missed with many of his punches and found it difficult to land anything in the fight.

The British crowd none the less cheered every big swing that Froch made, even though most of them were missing badly. Froch seemed too slow to connect to the fast moving Dirrell. The bout suddenly changed in the 5th when Froch body slammed Dirrell to the canvas in a rough wrestling type move. The referee stood back and didn’t take points away, however. From there, the bout disintegrated into foul plagued bout with Froch holding & hitting, throwing rabbit punches and shoving Dirrell around the ring.

For his part, Dirrell did a great deal of holding. The referee decided to take a point away from Dirrell, the visiting fighter in the 10th round for holding, but let Froch get away with his own fouls without taking away points. It seemed unfair to some boxing fans that the referee didn’t take points away from Froch for the more dangerous fouls.

In the 10th round, Dirrell staggered Froch with a hard left to the head. In the 11th and 12th, Dirrell appeared to be in control of the fight. However, one of the judges scored the 11th and 12th rounds for Froch, which fan counter to the feelings of many of the boxing fans who witnessed the fight.

One thing can be sure about the outcome of the Froch-Dirrell fight, neither fighter came out the winner of the bout. Dirrell looked bad with his holding, falling down and constant running. And Froch looked equally bad with his fouling, inability to land his punches and his awkward look. Froch got the win, of course, but his stock has gone down in the minds of many boxing fans.