By Scott Gilfoid: It’s a tragedy that Andre Dirrell (19-1, 13 KO’s) may be putting his good friendship with his Olympic buddy Andre Ward (22-0, 13 KO’s) at risk when the two good friends face each other on November 27th in their stage 3 Super Six tournament fight. The last thing that Dirrell and Ward want to do is to put their close friendship at risk by fighting each other, but there’s no other choice. With Showtime’s scheduling of fights, Dirrell and Ward have to face each other now rather than the left over European fighters in the tournament. If it were up to me, I would have Dirrell fighting Carl Froch again in a neutral location and have Ward facing Abraham.

Those are the logical choices, because it would be American vs. Europe instead of America vs. America and Europe vs. Europe. Both Dirrell and Ward have looked sensational all throughout the Super Six tournament, showing speed, and boxing skills that other fighters would literally die for. The talent and ability of each of these fighters is far beyond the other Super Six tourney fighters, especially two two that are left over. Mikkel Kessler has some ability, but he bailed on the tourney just when he was faced with fighting Allan Green. We don’t know whether Kessler is the real deal or not, because just when he proved himself by beating the stuffing out of Froch, Kessler pulled out of the tournament before his fight with Green.

Ward says his friendship with Dirrell will be over the first punch from Dirrell lands. Hopefully, Dirrell and Ward can still be good friends after the fight. As long as the fight is close and well fought, the loser of the bout shouldn’t have hard feelings. Neither fighter has trashed talk going into the bout, so there won’t be any of that stuff to get in the way of these two talents staying friends. That’s always difficult when you have two fighters talking trash 24/7 and trying to humiliate each other. Sometimes a fighter crosses the line in trying to drum up attention for the bout and it causes the other fighter to hate them for it.

That isn’t going to happen with Dirrell and Ward. This fight is going to be fought in the ring and not outside it. The bout might get less attention for that reason, but what can you do? This isn’t like Dirrell vs. Froch or Dirrell vs. Abraham. Those fights were easy to get excited about, but when you have two fighters that are do identical like Dirrell and Ward, it makes things less interesting.