By Scott Gilfoid: The huge fight between James DeGale (20-1, 14 KOs) and Andre Dirrell (24-1, 16 KOs) could be taking place on the same card as the title fight between Andre’s brother WBC super middleweight champion Anthony Dirrell (27-0-1, 22 KOs) and Badou Jack (18-1-1, 12 KOs) on April 24th at the UIC Pavilion, in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
Boxing fans would be getting two Dirrell’s on the same card. It would be a really great if this actually takes place. DeGale and Dirrell will be fighting over the vacant IBF 168 pound title that was recently vacated by Carl Froch. Dirrell is said to be the favorite over the slower DeGale.
“I’m a bit of an underdog. I like that,” DeGale said via IFL TV. “I’m hearing they want to put us on his brother’s bill. Eddie [Hearn] thinks it will be the end of April or the beginning of May. Some people say I have no chance, but I’m extremely confident. I know what I can do.”
DeGale is confident because he’s had 10 easy options since he lost to George Groves in 2011. What DeGale doesn’t say is that two of his wins – Hadillah Mohoumadi and Piotr Wilczewski – were controversial wins in the eyes of some boxing fans.
I had DeGale losing both of those fights after seeing them on replay. He looked really poor in both fights and struggled badly. The fact that DeGale went life and death with those two, as well as losing to Groves, kind of puts things in perspective about DeGale.
Don’t get me wrong; I think DeGale is a good domestic level fighter. I think he and Groves are pretty much identical in the talent department. You can throw in Martin Murray with those two. They’re all pretty much even in the talent department. But with that said, I don’t see DeGale even being close to as talented as Andre Dirrell, and I see this fight as being a bad mismatch with Dirrell having too much talent for DeGale to compete against him. That’s not to say that it won’t be a good fight, because I think it will be. But I do see it as being totally one-sided with Dirrell easily winning by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision. I can see Dirrell knocking DeGale out if DeGale gets a little too brave and a little too aggressive in there.
If Dirrell defeats DeGale, and Anthony Dirrell does his job in taking care of the serviceable Jack, there will be two Dirrell brothers holding world champion titles as the same time. That’s going to be a big deal.
Having the Dirrell-DeGale fight televised on NBC on the Premier Boxing Champions league is a big deal for both fighters, because they’ll both be seen by millions of boxing fans in America.
It’ll be a good deal even for DeGale, because he’ll be able to win over a lot of fans. Who knows? When/if DeGale comes back to America in the future to fight for another world title at some point in the future, he’ll have already been seen by countless fans in America. That has to be seen as a good thing.
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