By Stanley White: Former WBC super middleweight champion Anthony “The Dog” Dirrell (30-1-1, 24 KOs) weighed in at 168.1 pounds on Thursday for his scheduled 10 round fight against journeyman Denis Douglin (20-5, 13 KOs) on Friday night at the Dort Federal Event Center in Flint, Michigan.
(Photo credit: Silvia Jones/Premier Boxing Champions)
Douglin, 29, weighed in at 168.8 lbs. The Dirrell-Douglin fight will be televised on Premier Boxing Champions on FS1 on Friday night. The start time for the Dirrell vs. Douglin televised fight card is tat 10:30 p.m. ET/7:30 p.m. PT.
Dirrell, #2 WBC, cannot afford to lose to Douglin without losing his ranking, and a chance for a title shot against WBC super middleweight champion David Benavidez. That’s a very winnable fight for Dirrell if he can get to Benavidez before one of the other top contenders in the World Boxing Council’s top 15. he only fighter ranked above Dirrell is Callum Smith at No.1. However, Smith is busy with the World Boxing Super Series (WBSS) tournament, and the chances are he’ll get beaten by George Groves or Chris Eubank Jr. Those guys are looking really solid right now.
Dirrell has been out of action for 10 months since stopping Norbert Nemesapati in the 5th round on January 13. Dirrell looked good in that fight. It’s unclear why Dirrrell hasn’t been staying active. He’s not been fighting nearly enough for the last 2 years of his career. Before the fight with Nemesapati, Dirrell had been out of the ring for 9 months.
Dirrell’s inactivity is terrible. It reminds me of the inactivity that we’re seeing with IBF welterweight champion Errol Spence Jr. It’s too bad, because it’s not hard to imagine that Dirrell will continue to fight rarely, and wind up with just a handful of fights in the last few years of his boxing career. Most fighters have short careers anyway. It’s just sad to see a talented fighter like Dirrrell fighting so infrequently.
Douglin hasn’t fought in over a year since losing to David Benavidez by a 10th round knockout on August 5, 2016. Douglin was not competitive in that fight, as he took a tremendous amount of punishment. Some boxing fans though Douglin would retire after that defeat, considering he had taken a real shellacking. Doiuglin has previously been beaten by George Groves by a 7th round knockout in 2014, and he was also beaten by Jose Angel Rodriguez, Jermell Charlo and Doel Carrasquillo.
Douglin’s long layoff could be a problem for him when he gets inside the ring with Dirrell. This is not the type of fighter that you want to be coming back to after you’ve been out of action for the last 15 months. Douglin was obviously offered enough money to make it worthwhile to take the Dirrell fight, but it’s still not a good situation for him.
To fight someone like Dirrell, you want to be active and on the top of your game. Hopefully for Douglin’s sake, he’s been training hard in the last 15 months so that he won’t be totally over-matched when he gets inside the ring with Dirrell.
Other weights on the card are as follows:
Jamontay Clark 150 vs. Domonique Dolton 152.2
Ryan Karl 142.8 vs. Kareem Martin 143.2