By Scott Gilfoid: The winner of next months Super Six tournament fight between Andre Dirrell and Andre Ward could very well be a future mega star along the same lines as Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao. Dirrell and Ward both have that potential to be two of the biggest stars that emerge out of the Super Six tournament. However, the winner of this fight is going to be in the driver’s seat for big money later on after the tourney ends.

Beyond Dirrell and Ward, there’s really no one that can compete with either Dirrell or Ward in the Super Six tourney. We saw Carl Froch win a questionable decision over Dirrell, but few boxing fans outside of England agree with that decision. Dirrell is just too good right now for any of the other Super Six tourney fighters to hang with him, other than Ward.

In analyzing the Dirrell vs. Ward fight, it’s incredibly difficult to pick a winner of this fight because both are so evenly matched. It will come down to whichever fighter has the most heart. In terms of talent, both of them are so evenly matched that it’s impossible to tell them apart. Dirrell has the better hand speed, and superior power and defense. However, Ward is the better inside fighter, more daring and a lot more tactical. Ward is constantly planning moves.

Indeed, he’s a very smart fighter and quite good finding flaws for his opponents. Dirrell will have to make adjustments on the fly if he wants to win this fight because Ward is going to be pushing the fight and trying to keep Dirrell on the defensive mode. However, Dirrell is superb at reacting when he’s attacked and will be at his finest.

What Dirrell isn’t good at is dealing with fighters that maul and foul on the inside. Dirrell didn’t react well with the roughhouse tactics that Froch used in his fight with Dirrell last year in October. Froch got away with a lot and Dirrell kept looking at the referee for help. There was no help from referee, and he pretty much made that clear by letting Froch continue to maul for the entire fight without taking off points.

Dirrell needs to take a crash course in dealing with fighters that purposely try to rough him up on the inside, because I have a strong feeling that Ward will be watching a lot of Dirrell’s initial fight in the Super Six tourney against Froch and trying to duplicate his efforts by throwing Dirrell around and landing crisp rabbit punches to the back of Dirrell’s head to throw him off his game.

If I was Dirrell, I would away as fast as I can and maybe look to the referee to see what he’s going to do. Hopefully, the referee doesn’t allow the MMA stuff to go on and takes off points from Ward immediately. But if not, then Dirrell is going to have to return the favor by getting dirty himself.

Once the referee has seen that the fight has gotten out of control, he’ll step in and straighten them both out and lecture them. I hope it doesn’t come to that. I’d much prefer that it be a clean fight, but with talent like Dirrell has, his opponents seem to want to get an extra edge to compensate for his incredible talent.