By Mark Vester
During a recent interview with Michigan Live, super middleweight Andre Dirrell (19-1, 13KOs) revealed that he's ready to return to the ring after being cleared by a doctor on February 1. Dirrell has not fought since last March. In the fight, he slipped down to the mat in the eleventh round and was hit by a punch from Arthur Abraham. The referee issued a disqualification call on Abraham. Later on, he was set to face his close friend, Andre Ward, in the third stage of the Super Six tournament but he withdrew from the fight after claiming neurological problems that were related to the shot he took from Abraham.
There are people who feel that he faked the injury to dodge a fight with Ward. He later fueled the critics by stating that a fight with Ward was being done "too early." Leading up to that fight, there were rumors the two boxers had no intention of fighting each other and the date of the fight was postponed. Just when the fight appeared to be on the verge of taking place, Dirrell withdrew from the entire Super Six with the injury. He once again voiced the opinion that a fight with Ward was taking place too early.
"I just heard it again today. Last night I saw a video on there that was quite funny and I commented back to him on Twitter like 'that was a good one.' People crack jokes about it, people say that 'I'm faking.' Haters gonna be haters but I'm loving it because. honestly, I have three to four to five times as many fans as I do haters and you got to take the good with the bad ... but it just really motivates me so when I hear it, it doesn't bother me," Dirrell said.
"Half of it makes me laugh, half of it makes me wonder but it doesn't bother me at all. I just want to get in there and fight. One thing about boxing is that you will be criticized until you retire so I'm actually looking forward to that. Floyd Mayweather's being critcized to this day and he's one of the best out there period! So I'm looking forward to getting more haters like Katt Williams says, but I can't do nothing but feed off of it. It's nothing but energy for me."
"I don't want to put any skepticism to saying that the fight was too early because people already believe that I was dodging him, but — come on man — we're two young fighters. We're both at the top of our career and people look to see us fight and they know ever since we've turned professional that people have been wanting to see us fight. They wanted to know if we can live up to the standards of bringing in a big crowd and they said that we can do that now."
"The Super Six was a beautiful opportunity for me but I don’t believe that it was the right time. Unfortunately this did happen, and we would’ve had our time to shine and we would have had a great crowd but I know it could be better with both of us carrying a championship, both of us at the high rise of our career, (and) at the peak of our performance. People are going to pay to see us. It’s definitely a potential big fight and I don’t want to sell it short."
