By Scott Gilfoid: In a little over a week from now, #7 IBF, #7 WBC, #14 WBA super middleweight talent Andre Dirrell (23-1, 16 KOs) will be in the ring to face the hard hitting #10 WBO, #12 IBF Derek Edwards (27-3-1, 14 KOs) in a 12 round IBF eliminator fight at the Colisee de Quebec, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada.
The Dirrell-Edwards fight will take place on the undercard of the Adonis Stevenson vs. Dmitry Sukhotsky fight.
Dirrell, 31, needs a win over the 35-year-old Edwards to put him in position to get a shot at the IBF title. Carl Froch is currently the IBF champion, but it’s expected that he’ll either vacate his title or be stripped of it due to him looking at fighting the likes of Julio Cesar Chavez Jr instead of his IBF mandatory James DeGale.
If Dirrell can beat Edwards then he can potentially face DeGale for the vacant IBF title in the near future. That’s a match-up that you’d have to favor Dirrell by a wide margin because he can do everything that DeGale does but far better in my view.
Dirrell is faster, stronger and a much better fighter defensively. He’s also arguably a lot smarter. You’ll never see Dirrell sitting with his back against the ropes like you routinely see with DeGale when he fights.
First things first. Dirrell must get by the stiff challenge of Edwards in order to put himself in position to fight for the IBF title. Edwards is a very dangerous fighter with a recent 1st round knockout win over Badou Jack from last February. Edwards dropped Jack twice in the 1st round before the fight was halted.
Dirrell will have to be very careful with Edwards because he can’t afford to fight sloppy against a puncher like him due to the danger involved in case he lands one of his big punches. Edwards was stopped in the 9th round last year in December by Matt Korobov.
Edwards was also stopped in the 3rd round by Stevenson in April of 2011. In 2010, Edwards lost a 10 round decision to Marcus Johnson. But with that said, Edwards has improved dramatically since those losses, and he’s a much different fighter than he was back then.
We’re talking about a completely different Edwards now compared to then. This is why Dirrell can’t afford to get sloppy in there against Edwards because he has the power to take his head off.
Also on the card is light heavyweight contender Artur Beterbiev facing Jeff Page Jr, and welterweight Ionut Dan Ion battling Kevin Bizier.
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