Dirrell-Jack & Jacobs-Truax tonight on Spike TV in Chicago, Illinois

By Boxing News - 04/24/2015 - Comments

dirrell4565By Scott Gilfoid: Boxing fans are in for a special treat tonight on the Premier Boxing Champions series on Spike TV with WBC super middleweight champion Anthony Dirrell (27-0-1, 22 KOs) faces #8 WBC Badou Jack (18-1-1, 12 KOs), and WBA World middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs (28-1, 25 KOs) defending his title against the big punching Caleb Truax (25-1-2, 15 KOs) in the co-feature bout at the UIC Pavilion, in Chicago, Illinois, USA.

The Dirrell-Jack & Jacobs-Truax card starts at 9PM ET/PT on Spike TV.

Both fights match big punchers, and there’s a very good chance that we’ll see two spectacular knockouts tonight. Jacobs, 28, can punch and has superb boxing skills and he’s a real athletic talent. However, he’s already shown to have a chin problem in the past in his 5th stoppage loss to Dmitry Pirog five years ago in July 2010. Since then, Jacobs has only had a handful of fights against mostly weak opposition with little in the way of punching or talent.

In his last fight, Jacobs defeated an over-matched Australian fighter named Jarrod Fletcher in stopping him in the 5th round to win the vacant World Boxing Association middleweight crown. It was pretty shocking that the WBA had Fletcher ranked No.1 at the time, as he looked awful and nothing like a No.1 ranked fighter. I thought his performance was that of a fighter ranked dead bottom of the WBA’s top 15 ranking.

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Truax, 31, has looked very, very impressive since losing a 10 round unanimous decision to Jermain Taylor three years ago in 2012. Truax has improved a lot since then and has won seven out of his last eight fights. He was held to a 10 round draw against Ossie Duran last year in January in a fight that Truax appeared to win. The scoring of that fight was very bizarre to say the least, as I had Truax winning the fight by four rounds. Since that fight, Truax has won his last two fights against Derek Ennis and Scott Sigmon.

Don’t be surprised if we see an upset in this fight with Truax knocking Jacobs out early in the fight. As I said, Jacobs can dish it out but he has a heck of a hard time taking the shots in return. If Truax is able to connect with some of his big shots like the light hitting Fletcher was in his recent fight against Jacobs, I can see this fight ending quickly before the 4th round.

In the main event, Dirrell will be looking to make his first title defense against Jack. This is going to be a really interesting fight in that boxing fans will get to see the blazing hand speed, huge power, and the pin point accuracy of Dirrell. He’s a very good fighter and perhaps the No.3 overall talent in the 168 pound division. I have his brother Andre Dirrell at No.1, Andre Ward at No.2 and Anthony Dirrell at No.3 in the division. I previously had Ward at No.1, but all the time off from the sport hasn’t helped him stay at the No.1 spot. For Ward to regain the top spot, he’s going to need to show that he can be an active champion. Even with his promotional stuff taken care of with him moving to Roc Nation Sports, Ward has still been slow in getting back into the ring. That makes me wonder if he’s going to be able to stay active in the future. If not, then I see Andre Dirrell keeping the No.1 spot in the division in my own rankings.

Jack has very good talent. His only problem is he’s really easy to hit, as his defense is leaky and his chin isn’t what it should be going into a fight against a talent like Dirrell. If Jack can’t stay out of the way of Dirrell’s right hand and left hooks, this fight is going to end early with Dirrell knocking him out. But even if Jack defends perfectly, I see him still getting starched at some point in the fight once Dirrell hits him with a clean shot to the head. Dirrell is just too powerful, too accurate and too fast for Jack to get out of this fight on his feet in my view. If Jack can see the final bell, he’ll have earned a lot of respect from me and from a lot of boxing fans.



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