dirrell3 (Photo credit: Amanda Kwok/SHOWTIME) By Scott Gilfoid: Once beaten #7 IBF, #7 WBC, #14 WBA super middleweight Andre Dirrell (23-1, 16 KOs) will be in action this Friday night in facing #7 WBA Derek Edwards (27-3-1, 14 KOs) on December 19th on the undercard of the Adonis Stevenson vs. Dmitry Sukhotsky fight on Showtime Championship Boxing from the Colisee de Quebec, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada.

This is a very important fight for the blazing fast Dirrell, because it’s an IBF eliminator fight. The winner will be in position to fight for the IBF title once the current champion Carl Froch makes up his mind whether he’s going to continue fighting or retire from the sport.

Dirrell would like nothing better than to beat Edwards and face Froch, who has a controversial win over Dirrell from way back in 2009 when the two of them were in the Super Six tournament. However, Froch appears to be in the shutdown mode of his career and it’s likely that he’ll fight only one more time before he retires from the sport. A fight against Dirrell would be pretty much out of the question because of the high risk involved for Froch.

“I want that rematch with Carl Froch. He’s the IBF Champion and a win on Friday will bring me closer to fighting him again and proving that I beat him the first time,” Dirrell said.

Let’s get this straight; beating Edwards will bring Dirrell closer to fighting for the IBF title, but it won’t bring Dirrell any closer to fighting Froch again. That simply isn’t going to happen. My guess is Froch is about as interested in facing Dirrell as he is in fighting Andre Ward again.

Both fighters were a nightmare for Froch. The only thing Dirrell can accomplish by beating Edwards is getting in position to fight for the IBF title once Froch is either stripped of the title or after he vacates it. Dirrell will then likely face James DeGale for the vacant IBF strap.

Dirrell can’t afford to take Edwards lightly because he can punch, and he’s coming off of a 1st round knockout win over the talented Badou Jack earlier this year in February. In that fight, Edwards dropped Jack twice in the 1st round before the fight was halted. Edwards can definitely punch, so Dirrell is going to have to be on his guard at all times if he wants to win this fight.

“I’m just looking forward to the fight. It will put me in a high ranking in the IBF and bring me this much closer to challenging for that title pretty soon,” Dirrell said.

The victory will be Dirrell in a holding pattern until we find out what Froch will do with his career. But the good news is that Dirrell will be in position to fight for a world title for the first time since his controversial loss to Froch in Nottingham, UK. That’s five years that has gone by since Dirrell fought for a world title, and that’s obviously too long for a fighter with his kind of incredible talent.

Also on this Friday’s card is Artur Beterbiev vs. Jeff Page Jr in light heavyweight action. Beterbiev is someone that could potentially win a world title at 175 once he gets enough fights under his belt to go after one of the belts.