DeGale: I'm Facing The Better Dirrell, I'll Beat Him

By Edward Chaykovsky

Olympic gold medal winner James DeGale (20-1, 14KOs) is waiting for a finalized date for his ordered fight with Andre Dirrell (24-1, 16KOs). They will fight for the vacant IBF super middleweight title. The match went to a purse bid, which was won by Warriors Boxing on behalf of Al Haymon, who is Dirrell's manager.

There were rumors of the fight taking place on April 24th in Chicago, but DeGale says that won't be the case.

"Them winning the purse bid has proved how much he's worried about me and a lot of good fighters from Britain have gone over to America and won world titles. My trainer Jim McDonnell has been telling me about the Ragamuffin Man Lloyd Honeyghan and how he went over there and ripped away the world welterweight title from Don Curry [in 1986] and recently we've had Kell Brook and Darren Barker winning world titles over there," DeGale told reporter Nick Parkinson.

DeGale says he's getting in the ring with the better Dirrell brother. Andre's younger brother is undefeated WBC super middleweight champion Anthony Dirrell. DeGale admits it won't be easy but he's confident of getting the victory - even if the fight takes place in the United States.

"I'm confident of doing it. It's going to be hard, very hard, because I don't think there's a harder fight out there for a world title. His record speaks for itself. He's a very technical fighter, his skill level is very high and he has pedigree because he's an Olympic medalist. He's fought for a world title before and I'm definitely fighting the better of the brothers," DeGale said.