Dirrell awaits Groves-Rebrasse winner for first title defense

By Boxing News - 08/17/2014 - Comments

Anthony Dirrell vs Sakio Bika(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By Scott Gilfoid: Anthony Dirrell (27-0-1, 22 KOs) put on a master-class performance last night in defeating WBC super middleweight champion Sakio Bika (32-6-3, 21 KOs) by a 12 round unanimous decision to win the WBC 168 pound title at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.

For Dirrell, this was his second fight against Bika, as he’d fought to a 12 round draw against him last December in a fight that Dirrell opted to sit on the ropes for much of the fight. But in the rematch last night, Dirrell stayed in the center of the ring and boxed his way to a 12 round decision.

Dirrell will now be waiting to find out who his first title defense will be again in the fight between George Groves (19-2, 15 KOs) and Christopher Rebrasse (22-2-3, 6 KOs) on September 20th at the Wembley Arena in London, UK. The Groves vs. Rebrasse fight is an official WBC 168 pound eliminator bout with the winner becoming Dirrell’s mandatory challenger.

Groves will clearly win this fight, because Rebrasse has fought only one top 15 contender during his career in Mouhamed Ali Nodiaye, and he looked poor against him in winning a recent 4th round stoppage. Rebrasse didn’t look powerful in that fight even though he got the knockout.

For some reason, Nodiaye started looking down at his shoes while he was fighting and he got clocked with a shot while he was glancing at his feet. It was very, very strange. One second Rebrasse is getting totally dominated and in the next instance, he knocks Nodiaye out with a series of shots that looked weak and slow.

Groves recently said that he was hoping that Dirrell would beat Bika, because he’s familiar with Dirrell and he thinks it would be a fun fight. Well, Groves now has his wish and he may end regretting that Dirrell beat Bika, because this is not a good match-up for him.

Dirrell’s hand speed and punching power is going to result in Groves getting nailed tremendous shots to the head when/if they face each other in the near future. I’m not sure that Groves is going to be able to take the huge shots that Dirrell is going to be nailing him with.

Look at it this way; if Groves couldn’t handle the hard – but very slow and easy to see – punches that Froch was hitting him with, then how is Groves going to be able to handle punches that are thrown with the exact same power but with much more power attached to them from Dirrell? I think I know the answer. Groves probably won’t be able to handle Dirrell’s power without going to sleep for a 10 count.

“I knew I could box this guy [Bika],” Dirrell said after the fight last night. “I stuck to it and got it done. I’m the WBC champion of the world. I wasn’t on the ropes,” Dirrell said in explaining why he fought so much better last night compared to his first fight against Bika. “The first fight I was on the ropes, just sitting there. This fight I boxed him. I knew I could do it all along.”



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