Medical issue forces Andre Dirrell off October 17th card

By Boxing News - 10/05/2015 - Comments

dirrell55665By Scott Gilfoid: This month’s October 17th Premier Boxing Champions card on NBC got some bad news today with the talented #8 IBF super middleweight contender Andre Dirrell (24-2, 16 KOs) having to pull out of his scheduled 10 round fight against former world title challenger Blake Caparello (21-1-1, 6 KOs) at the EagleBank Arena, in Fairfax, Virginia, USA.

The Dirrell-Caparello fight was supposed to be the co-feature bout on the Lamont Peterson (33-3-1, 17 KOs) vs. Felix Diaz (17-0, 8 KOs) card. Dirrell has a medical issue that has forced him off the card.

“Medical issue forced Andre Dirrell off 10/17 #PBConNBC co-feature vs. Caparello. New co: unbeaten 147s Prichard Colon & Terrell Williams,” Dan Rafael said on his Twitter.

The Dirrell vs. Caparello fight will be replaced by unbeaten junior middleweights Prichard “Digget” Colon (16-0, 13 KOs) and Terrel Williams (14-0, 12 KOs) facing each other instead in the co-feature bout.

This is really bad news for Dirrell, because he’s coming off of a disappointing narrow 12 round decision in his last fight against James DeGale last May in a fight for the vacant IBF super middleweight title. Dirrell fought well enough to deserve the win, but two knockdowns in the 2nd round sealed his fate, making it impossible to get the win.

I still had Dirrell doing enough to deserve at least a draw if not a win, but the judges didn’t give him credit for him getting the better of DeGale in the 12th, and the referee gave DeGale credit for his second knockdown in the 2nd round, which came from a push rather than a punch.

The referee was standing on top of the action and should have seen DeGale push Dirrell to the canvas instead of punching him, but it was a blow call that cost Dirrell the fight.

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It’s unknown at this point when Dirrell will be fighting again. He only has one fight in 2015 thus far, and it would be a pity if the DeGale fight is the only one he has this year. Dirrell needs to fight on a more frequent basis than once a year if he wants to keep moving up the rankings so that he can get another title shot.

Dirrell has the kind of talent that would make him a world champion easily if he could get a rematch against DeGale, or get fights against champions Arthur Abraham and Badou Jack. With Andre Ward moving up to 175, I now see Dirrell as the most talented fighter in the super middleweight division. He’s got the hand speed, defensive, punching power and mobility to be the best fighter in this weight class.

Dirrell just needs to be given the opportunities right now for him to fight the top fighters, and I think he can take over the super middleweight division and rule it with an iron fist.

Earlier today, DeGale said that Dirrell is someone he’s interested in fighting again in the near future. Just when that will happen is hard to tell. My guess is we probably won’t see DeGale electing to fight Dirrell again any earlier than 2017.

I definitely don’t see DeGale fighting Dirrell in 2016, and he can’t fight him this year because he has a mismatch scheduled against Lucian Bute on November 28th in Quebec.

Dirrell has had some bad luck in the last six years with him getting arguably robbed in his fight against Carl Froch in 2009 in a fight that took place in Froch’s hometown of Nottingham, UK. Many boxing fans thought that Dirrell clearly won that fight. I had Dirrell winning 8 rounds to 3 with 1 even.

Dirrell would later be injured in a fight against Arthur Abraham in 2010, a fight in which Abraham struck Dirrell with a big right hand to the head after he slipped on the canvas. Dirrell would then stay out of the ring for a year and a half afterwards before returning to action in late 2011 for a fight against Darryl Cunningham.



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