(Photo credit: Amanda Kwok/SHOWTIME) By Scott Gilfoid: Super middleweight talent Andre Dirrell (24-1, 16 KOs) looked sensational last night in pitching a near shutout in defeating the hard hitting Derek Edwards (27-4-1, 14 KOs) by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision at the Colisee de Quebec, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada.
The importance of the fight for Dirrell is that it was an IBF super middleweight title eliminator. The win put Dirrell in as the No.2 mandatory challenger to IBF champ Carl Froch.
Dirrell made it clear immediately after the fight that Froch is his target, and he’s hoping that he doesn’t retire without fighting him. Dirrell, however, thinks Froch is scared to fight him due to the risk involved in taking on a talent like himself. While Dirrell is holding out hope that Froch will want to clear up the controversy around their previous fight in 2009, he’s not too hopeful Froch will suddenly start showing interest in facing him.
Dirrell made it clear that he’s not George Groves, a fighter that Froch has knocked out twice in a row recently. If Froch were to fight him, he’d have a real fight and would find himself in a real battle to try and keep his IBF and WBA titles.
“I honestly believe he’s [Froch] afraid to fight me,” Dirrell said about Froch after the fight. “It’s too risky of a fight for him to take. With that being said, I’m going to push it to the best of my ability to get that fight with Carl Froch. He’s a tough European. He’s won a championship, he’s lost it. If he wants to go out with a victory and retire, he has the option to do that. But there’s a fight on his record, there’s a win on his record that is questionable to everybody in the world. That fight, I’ve been cheated but never defeated. Give me the rematch, and prove to your fans that you beat me and try to do it again. I’m a tough warrior. He [Edwards] may have lasted 12 rounds and you might have stopped him, but I ain’t no George Groves, baby. Step inside the ring with Andre Dirrell and you’re going to see what this is all about.”
I have to agree with Dirrell about him thinking that Froch wants no part of him due to fear. I think Froch wants no part of Dirrell, because it’s a fight in which Froch could end up getting clowned by Dirrell for 12 rounds. Froch would then have to eat a loss near the end up his career. Froch could then brush off the loss and retire without dwelling on it too much, or he could perhaps extend his career for another couple of years to try and finish with a winning streak.
Of course, the negative thing about that is that Froch would look bad if he didn’t try to avenge his loss to Dirrell and to Andre Ward. If Froch just takes on a bunch of Groves level fighters then he’s going to look like he’s playing it safe trying to pad his record before he retires.
“I want to perfect my craft as far as southpaw,” Dirrell said in explaining why he fought out of the southpaw stance for most of the fight against Edwards. “I worked profusely with the southpaw stance. I was working on my strength. That boy has a tough, tough head. I’m not going to doubt my power one bit. He was just a guy that could take a punch. I was hitting him with everything but the kitchen sink but he was eating every punch,” Dirrell said.
If Dirrell had fought out of the orthodox stance instead of at southpaw, I believe he would have knocked Edwards out. Dirrell was throwing mostly left hands all night long, and that’s not his power hand. There were instances where Dirrell would hit Edwards with six consecutive left hands in a row with them coming one after another, but Edwards was able to take the shot. If Dirrell had switched back to the orthodox stance, he would have been firing off rights with his strong hand and it would have been difficult for Edwards to take those shots for more than a round or two. If Dirrell really wanted a knockout, he could have switched stance easily and taken Edwards out.
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