By Scott Gilfoid: IBF/WBA super middleweight champion Carl Froch (33-2, 24 KOs) will be vacating his International Boxing Federation 168 pound title this Monday, according to the Mirror.co.uk. It’s a situation where the 37-year-old Froch had until January 31st to face James DeGale, his IBF mandatory challenger, and Froch chose not to.
Froch still wants a fight against former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr because he believes it’ll be a big fight in the United States. The vacating of Froch’s belt sets up a more interesting fight in my view between DeGale, #1 IBF, and #2 IBF Andre Dirrell for April 25th unless Dirrell decides it’s not a worthy fight for him.
The fight would take place at the O2 Arena in London, UK, and it’s unclear whether Dirrell wants a second helping of fighting in the UK after his controversial loss to Froch in 2009 in Froch’s hometown of Nottingham, UK. That bout was a fight that many boxing fans felt that Dirrell should have won. I had it scored 8 rounds to 3 for Dirrell with 1 even. It was pretty conclusive.
Dirrell can get the fight with DeGale if he wants it, but like I said, I’m not sure if Dirrell wants to fight in the UK and be put in a position where he’d need to put his faith in the judging. Dirrell and his brother Anthony Dirrell, the WBC super middleweight champion, seem kind of adverse to fighting in the UK. Whether they can be persuaded to fight over there is unclear.
I’m sure if DeGale’s promoter Eddie Hearn waves enough cash under Dirrell’s snoot, he might change his mind and agree to fight DeGale in England. If not, then we’re probably looking at Hearn trying to get someone like #3 IBF Gilberto Ramirez or #5 IBF Julius Jackson. Hearn will obviously offer the fight to George Groves, but he’s made it pretty clear that he wants to fight Anthony Dirrell next for his WBC title rather than DeGale, so I don’t see Hearn having any success in luring the Sauerland Events fighter to agree to a fight against him.
The other option that Hearn was interested in matching against DeGale was Mikkel Kessler. However, with Kessler’s announcement from earlier today about him retiring from boxing, it would seem impossible for Hearn to get him to agree to fight DeGale. Besides that, the cash wouldn’t likely be all that good for a DeGale-Kessler fight. Kessler might be up for a fight against Froch if it were offered to him, because he’d make a lot of loot for that fight. But a DeGale-Kessler fight would likely bring in a lot less money.
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