By Scott Gilfoid: The 29-year-old 2008 Olympic gold medalist James DeGale (20-1, 14 KOs) wants to become the first British fighter to capture a gold medal and a world title during his career this month in his fight against #2 IBF Andre Dirrell (24-1, 16 KOs) in their fight for the vacant IBF super middleweight title on May 23rd at the Agganis Arena, in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
DeGale has been talking long and hard about how he wants to make history by beating Dirrell to accomplish his goal of becoming the first Olympic and world champion from Britain, but Dirrell doesn’t plan on being used as a stepping stone for DeGale for him to meet his dreams.
Dirrell plans on going out there on May 23rd and giving DeGale a whipping that he won’t soon forget when the two of them facing each other on Premier Boxing Champions on NBC. Dirrell will have a huge audience watching the fight on NBC, and it’s going to put himself in position where he can win a lot of fans.
“My time is here and I going to be crowned the IBF world champion,” DeGale said via Matchroomboxing.com.
Four years ago nobody would have ever thought that DeGale would be in the position to win a world title after he was beaten by George Groves by a 12 round majority decision. But since then, DeGale has won his last 10 fights against largely weak opposition and he’s boosted his confidence and the confidence of many boxing fans.
No one has said much about the level of opposition that DeGale has been fighting to get those 10 wins. That would be an obvious that should be on the minds of many fans, because DeGale has faced awful opposition since the Groves fight. Dirrell and even his brother Anthony Dirrell would have likely swept the same 10 guys that DeGale has beaten recently. As such, DeGale will be taking a significant step up in competition this month against Andre Dirrell because this is a much higher caliber fighter than the mediocre opponents that DeGale has padded his record with in his last 10 fights.
Dirrell is the faster guy with the better punching power and the superior defense than DeGale. Dirrell also has the better experience as a pro, and he arguably fought better opponents than DeGale did when he fought in the 2014 Olympics and won a bronze medal.
For DeGale to win his gold medal in the 2008 Olympics, he didn’t have to fight anyone named Gennady Golovkin like Dirrell did in the Olympics. Had Golovkin been an opponent for DeGale, it’s safe to say that there wouldn’t have been a gold medal for DeGale. I think that’s a fairly safe guess. The only guy that beat Dirrell in the 2004 Olympics was Golovkin, and it was a close fight.
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