By Scott Gilfoid: Former world title challenger Andre Dirrell (24-1, 16 KOs), who feels he was cheated in his previous title shot against Carl Froch in their fight in 2009, is glad he’s facing Britain’s #1 IBF James DeGale (20-1, 14 KOs) for the vacant IBF super middleweight title at a still to be determined date in the near future.
Dirrell didn’t want a pushover opponent in fighting for such an important fight, and he’s glad he’ll be fighting a Gold medalist in the 6’0 ½” DeGale. Dirrell thinks it’ll be an interesting fight for as long as it lasts.
Dirrell’s adviser Al Haymon is looking to find a venue and a date for the Dirrell-DeGale fight. It previously was thought that the Dirrell-DeGale fight would take place in late April on the 24th, but it now appears that it’s likely going to be dragged out into May or June of this year.
The fighters will need time to train, and Haymon will need to adviser the fight, which will almost definitely be televised on HBO on the Premier Boxing Champions series. With the date now March 23rd, there’s not enough time for Dirrell and DeGale to get ready within four weeks to face each other in late April.
“DeGale is one tall guy. He is an Olympic gold medalist. He can pretty much bang, he can box; he can box, I think he’s a pretty sharp fighter,” Dirrell said via Dontae’s Boxing Nation. “This is an excellent fight for me to win a world championship. I don’t want to get in that ring and win any world championship off some mediocre fighter. I want to do it with somebody with the caliber of James (DeGale). We’re going to put a great performance on for the people.”
Dirrell, 6’1”, will have the height advantage over DeGale, and a slight reach advantage as well. But where Dirrell will have the real advantage in this fight is in the hand speed, power, talent, mobility and defensive skills. It’s kind of stacked against DeGale, I hate to say.
DeGale won’t even have the hometown advantage like Froch had in his fight with Dirrell, because the fight will be taking place in the United States. That’s going to put DeGale in a really bad place where he’s going to need to pray that he can score a knockout, because if the fight goes the full 12 rounds, Dirrell will be almost impossible to beat.
DeGale is a slow, flat-footed fighter without the speed, defensive skills or the mobility to beat a guy as talented as Dirrell from the way I see it.
DeGale has got a lot of boxing fans drinking the tea believing that he’s the real deal with a chance to beat Dirrell. DeGale’s recent wins over Brandon Gonzales and Marco Antonio Periban has convinced boxing fans that he can beat anyone in the division.
Unfortunately for the fans, they don’t seem to realize that Periban and Gonzales weren’t what you would call top tier guys, even though they were technically fringe level fighters at the time that DeGale beat them.
There’s no comparison between those guys and a talent like Dirrell. This is why DeGale is going to be in for a lot of problems when he gets inside the ring with Dirrell. It’s likely going to be a real shock for DeGale when he sees how fast and how talented Dirrell is.
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