By Scott Gilfoid: Andre Dirrell’s win over Derek Edwards last night in their IBF super middleweight title eliminator puts Dirrell on a crash course with #1 IBF, #4 WBO, #9 WBA James DeGale (24-1, 16 KOs) for the IBF title in 2015 once Froch gives up the belt, which is fully expected due to him showing no interest in facing his mandatory DeGale.
If Froch doesn’t face DeGale in the first part of 2015, then he’ll likely be stripped by the International Boxing Federation for failing to defend against his mandatory.
DeGale earned the IBF mandatory spot last May when he defeated Brandon Gonzales by a 4th round knockout win. Last Friday night, Dirrell became the second IBF mandatory challenger when he dominated Edwards in beating him by a 12 round decision.
DeGale is still hoping that Froch will choose to face him, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to be happening. Froch wants to fight Julio Cesar Chavez Jr in the first quarter of 2015, and he’s expected to dump his IBF title in order to take that fight.
Trying to put a fight together between Dirrell and DeGale might prove to be difficult though, because DeGale’s promoter Eddie Hearn will likely want the fight to take place in the UK, and it’s doubtful that Dirrell will want to fight over there given his previous experience in fighting in the UK against Froch in 2009.
Dirrell out-boxed Froch over 12 rounds and still found himself losing a 12 round split decision. Whatever the case, Dirrell will likely end up facing DeGale for the IBF title unless he decides he wants no part of fighting in the UK. Of course, Dirrell’s adviser Al Haymon has pretty deep pockets and he could very well win a purse bid to get the Dirrell vs. DeGale fight in the United States if he wants to.
Hearn has been talking about wanting to match George Groves up against DeGale for a rematch next year. I’m not sure that Groves will opt to take that fight because it would likely mean that he’d have to give up on the idea of him fighting Dirrell’s brother WBC super middleweight champion Anthony Dirrell for his WBC title.
Groves will likely stick it out and wait on that fight rather than facing DeGale. It’s a really bad matchup for Groves, but he’s extremely confident he can win just as he was confident he could beat Froch in their two fights.
Andre Dirrell would be a terrible match-up for DeGale, because he’s better than him in every category you can think of. Dirrell is stronger, faster, more elusive, more mobile and better defensively. It’s hard to picture DeGale being able to take 12 rounds of continuous punishment like we saw Edwards take last night.
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