By Scott Gilfoid: Although we still don’t know where the upcoming Super Six tournament fight between Andre Ward and Andre Dirrell will be held, there hasn’t been an official postponement for the fight so I’m assuming that it will still take place on September 25th. This is a fight where you’ve got the very best of the Super Six facing each other. This is the cream of the crop for the Super Six tournament. The rest of fighters are good, there’s no question about that, but Ward and Dirrell are the fighters that really seem to stand out among the other contestants. Ward is favored to win, but I’m not so sure about that. Dirrell has the physical tools to win this fight.
He’s got the bigger size, the faster hands, the better defense and the better power. Those are factors you just can’t overlook. Ward is a great inside fighter, but he’s been able to fight like that because his opponents have been foolish enough to let him. In the case of Mikkel Kessler, his reaction time was a step too slow in pulling away from Ward’s lead right hands. Heck, Ward didn’t even need to throw a jab to land his rights because Kessler wasn’t fast enough to put up his guard to block Ward’s long telegraphed shots. Dirrell will be quick enough to get out of the way of these punches. Ward is going to have to come up with another plan if he hopes of beating Dirrell.
It won’t be done with long right hands and it won’t be done by mugging him on the inside like he’s done against his other Super Six tournament opponents Kessler and Allan Green. Ward is probably the better thinker than Dirrell in the ring, but that may not help him if he’s not able to handle Dirrell’s amazing skills. We’ve seen a smarter fighter get beaten a million times by a fighter with better physical skills. That’s why the young lions are able to beat the older fighters. It’s not because they’re smarter than them. It’s because they have too much speed, endurance and youth going for them. Ward isn’t old, but a lot of his advantages are canceled out because of Dirrell’s amazing physical ability.
Dirrell hung back in his fight against WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch in his first fight in the Super Six tournament and let Froch do all the attacking. Dirrell learned from that fight and turned the tables in his next opponent Arthur Abraham, coming after him for most of the fight and landing hard punches. Dirrell uses a straight up European style often in his fights and this enables him to move faster than if he was to fight with a wide stance like a lot other fighters typically use.
Dirrell is a lot more relaxed a fighter compared to Ward, and doesn’t wear down in the later rounds. Dirrell is kind of like a young version of Muhammad Ali when he was still finding his way and improving. In that respect, he’ll have his Sonny Liston-like opponent in Ward and he’ll have to figure out a way to beat him. Right now, like Liston, Ward is heavily favored to beat Dirrell, but I think Dirrell may surprise a lot of people and get the win. Either way, both of these fighters are amazing talents and destined to be the top fighters in the super middleweight division for many years.
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