By James P Sexton: This isn’t a guaranteed fight, but lets say Carl Froch opts to vacate his IBF title rather than defend it against his mandatory challenger in James DeGale. If this happens it could fall into place that American Andre Dirrell could face British James DeGale for the then vacant title at 168lbs. This could prove to be one of the best match ups that we can see. It is interesting for a number of reasons.
Firstly each man has only one loss and zero draws on their records. Each loss came via a very close decision. DeGale’s was a majority decision vs. George Groves and Dirrell’s was a split decision vs Carl Froch. Both of these losses came quite a few years back and each fighter has been on a string of wins.
In my humble opinion I would put both of these men in the top ten fighters currently active at 168lbs and it has to be seen as a good match-up, also if George Groves fights Anthony Dirrell for the WBC 168 lb title, we could end up in an interesting situation as once this all blows over we could see a division dominated by two brothers, or a division where rivals George Groves and James DeGale are both champions. Whilst I doubt the Dirrell brothers situation would lead to a unification bout, the DeGale vs Groves 2 bout for both titles would be an exciting spectacle.
All of this could take place and potentially the top two men in the division (Andre Ward and Froch) may still be inactive. Mix in the other top super middleweights such as Julio Cesar Chavez jr, Callum Smith, Arthur Abraham, Robert Stiglitz, Felix Sturm, Sakio Bika, Brian Vira and Caleb Traux, and you could have a very different pecking order at middleweight by the end of the year, at its likely that Groves, DeGale or one of the Dirrell Brothers could be at the top of it.
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