‘Chunky’ should have title fight confirmed on Monday…
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Carl Froch will reportedly vacate his IBF super-middleweight world title on Monday after failing to agree on a defence against mandatory challenger James DeGale.
Froch has made no secret of his desire to fight in Las Vegas rather than take on his domestic rival, but an elbow injury has postponed his scheduled bout with Julio Cesar Chavez Jr until the summer at the earliest.
The 37-year-old had until January 31 to agree on a defence against DeGale, and it is understood that he hasn’t requested a medical exception which means that he has opted to vacate the belt instead.
Promoter Eddie Hearn hinted last week that he would have news on DeGale on Monday, and it is widely reported that it could come in the form of announcing that he will have a world title fight on April 25 at the O2 Arena in London.
However, the remaining mystery surrounds his opponent, as it is unclear at this stage as to whether or not the IBF’s No.2 ranked fighter, Andre Dirrell, is open to coming to the UK to fight DeGale.
Speculation continues to suggest that Mikkel Kessler is in the running, but that is completely false given that the Dane hasn’t fought in over a year, and more importantly isn’t even ranked in the Top 15 by the IBF.
As a result, that fight can be completely ruled out of the equation, which leaves Dirrell as the top candidate with Gilberto Ramirez’s camp telling DeGale’s adviser Ambrose Mendy that they don’t feel that he is ready for the fight just yet.
That leaves a possible rematch against George Groves in the mix, but that also looks unlikely given that the ‘Saint’ is the mandatory challenger for the WBC title which is currently being held by Anthony Dirrell.
While British boxing fans in particular would love to see DeGale-Groves 2, it would arguably make more sense from both from a boxing perspective and a financial one if the two men both had world titles to bring to the bout later in the year after defeating the Dirrell brothers.
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