By Scott Gilfoid: Newly crowned WBC 168 pound champion Badou Jack (19-1-1, 12 KOs) is ready to get his mandatory title defense out of the way against his WBC mandatory challenger George Groves (21-2, 16 KOs) in his next fight. Jack, 31, pulled off a shock upset last Friday night in beating WBC champion Anthony Dirrell (27-1-1, 22 KOs) by a 12 round majority decision at the UIC Pavilion, in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
Jack used roughhouse tactics to get the better of the more technical and disciplined Dirrell, and the referee chose not to take points off from Jack to control the fouling.
“I want George Groves next,” Jack said via Fight News.
I’m sure Groves is happy about this because he’s been pushing hard to get a title shot since he beat little known Christopher Rebrasse in their WBC eliminator bout last September. The World Boxing Council gave Groves a huge opportunity by matching him against what I see as a weaker and deeply flawed light hitting fighter in Rebrasse instead of having Groves take on an arguably much better fighter like Vincent Feigenbutz, Gilberto Ramirez, or Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. The other thing that was peculiar about all this is the fact that Groves was allowed to fight in the WBC eliminator bout despite him coming off of back to back knockout losses to Carl Froch.
For American boxing fans, this is the equivalent of a team getting to go to the Super Bowl after losing two playoff games in a row. It makes no sense at all to me. It’ll be interesting to see if the WBC turns around and gives Anthony Dirrell a chance to become the mandatory for the winner of the Groves-Jack fight if he too fights Rebrasse. Somehow I don’t think that’s going to happen.
“I knew they couldn’t rob me. I thought I clearly won. I had a tough start to my career, but I re-focused myself with my team and got back on track,” Jack said.
The judges didn’t rob Jack, but they clearly didn’t do Dirrell any favors with their scoring. I had the fight scored a draw because I saw six rounds that Dirrell clearly won. It’s not that Jack didn’t do a good job in the fight, because he definitely did with his pressure fighting, but he still gave up six rounds by not being able to land enough of his shots in the rounds where Dirrell fought well.
Dirrell wants a rematch against Jack. He wants an opportunity to avenge his loss. I kind of doubt that Jack will bother giving Dirrell a rematch. Jack has got a fight coming up against Groves likely in the summer, and after that Jack will likely be matched against other guys. The only way I see Dirrell getting a second fight against Jack is if he beats a two of three top fighters and gets ranked as the No.1 fighter. It might take a long time because the WBC has Gilberto Ramirez ranked #2 and Chavez Jr. ranked #3. I don’t see the WBC moving Dirrell past those guys until they’ve made it clear whether they want to fight for the WBC title or not.
“He fought a great fight tonight. I want a rematch,” Dirrell said.
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