By Tim Royner: Anthony Dirrell (31-1-1, 24 KOs) barely squeaked by Denis Douglin (20-6, 13 KOs) this month in winning an ugly 6th round technical decision, but now he’s ready to fight for a world title against one of the other champions at super middleweight in David Benavidez, George Groves, James DeGale, Tyron Zeuge or Gilberto Ramirez.
Dirrell says he’s ready to take on the unbeaten 20-year-old Benavidez.
Dirrell was cut over his left eye from a clash of heads in the Douglin fight. The fight could have likely gone on beyond round 6, but Dirrell told the ringside doctor that he had problems seeing out of his eye.
Dirrell said he’s ”open to fight any” of the super middleweight champions in the division. Dirrell is specifically interested in facing DeGale, Groves or Benavidez.
Dirrell, 33, looked like he was fading badly in the 5th and 6th rounds against the 29-year-old Douglin. If anything, you can argue that Dirrell should keep his career where it’s at right now and fight Douglin again so he can prove that he’s better than him, as he didn’t do that in their fight on November 17 in Flint, Michigan. Dirrell doesn’t want to do that though.
It would be too risky, and he doesn’t want to waste what little time he has in his career. Goodness knows, Dirrell already wasted too much time in his career anyway. Dirrell is ranked #3 by the World Boxing Council. He’s ranked high, but not high enough to force a title shot against Benavidez.
“Me and (Benavidez) can rumble. That’s definite fireworks if it happens,” Dirrell said to Premier Boxing Champions.
Benavidez doesn’t an open schedule right now, so Dirrell is going to need to go in another direction for his next fight. Benavidez plans on fighting a rematch against Ronald Gavril. After that, it’s likely that Benavidez will fight the winner of the World Boxing Super Series 168lb. tournament.
Benavidez could face the likes of Groves or Chris Eubank Jr. Even Callum Smith and Juergen Braehmer are possibilities. Dirrell is not likely going to be an option for Benavidez.
Dirrell has won his last 4 fights since losing to Badou Jack in 2015, but he’s no beaten anyone of note. He might have even lost the Douglin fight if he’d stuck it out for the entire 10 rounds instead of telling the ringside doctor that he couldn’t see out of his cut eye. It looked Dirrell wanted out of the fight due to him being exhausted and getting worked over by a younger fighter.
Benavidez did a much better job in beating Douglin last year by a 10h round knockout than what Dirrell did.
Dirrell had a chance to fight Benavidez in September, but he came up lame with a back injury and failed to take the fight. Benavidez ended up fighting Gavril for the vacant WBC super middleweight title on September 8.
“It was tough to pull out of a world championship fight, but I had a back injury,” said Dirrell. ”Everybody thought I was faking and didn’t want to fight Benavidez, but my back was still hurting at the beginning of this camp. I’m better now, and since both of us did what we wanted to against Douglin, he can get it.”