Andre Dirrell (24-2, 16 KOs) put in a game effort this afternoon in losing a 12 round unanimous decision to James DeGale (21-1, 14 KOs) in their fight for the vacant IBF super middleweight title Agganis Arena in Boston, Massachusetts. Dirrell, 31, lost the fight despite appearing to win most of the round. His problem was he was knocked down twice by DeGale in the 2nd round.
The second knockdown appeared to be a push though by DeGale. The final judges’ scores were 114-112, 114-117-109 and 114-112. It’s unknown what fight the judge was watching who scored it 117-109 for DeGale. That was totally unreasonable scoring of the fight. DeGale nicked it by a very slim margin based on his two knockdowns in the 2nd.
Dirrell was dominating the 3rd round until DeGale landed some big shots near the end of the round to win the round. Dirrell was also dominating the 2nd before the two knockdowns.
From rounds 4 through 10, Dirrell control the action with his better work. He also fought well in the 1st round. I had Dirrell winning the opening round based on his defensive skills. DeGale came back strong in the 11th round to win it based on Dirrell’s inactivity. But in the 12th, Dirrell fought well enough to deserve the round. DeGale landed some shots, but it was Dirrell who landed the harder blows in the round and had DeGale circling constantly rather than mixing it up.
Like I said, I had Dirrell winning 7 of the rounds. You could call it a draw or a narrow win for DeGale. Dirrell definitely didn’t win it though.
As exciting as this fight was, it would be nice to see DeGale and Dirrell fight a second time. That’s probably not going to happen, but it was really exciting for the full 12 rounds.
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Light heavyweight Edwin Rodriguez (27-1, 18 KOs) stopped Craig Baker (16-1, 12 KOs) in the 3rd round of a scheduled 10 round bout. Rodriguez was hitting Baker at will in the 3rd round when referee Robert Benoit stepped in and stopped the bout. Baker wasn’t too happy at the stoppage because he wasn’t hurt at the time, but he also wasn’t throwing anything back at Rodriguez. It was one-way traffic for Rodriguez.
Other boxing action on the card:
Gary O’Sullivan KO 2 Melvin Betancourt
Ryan Kielczewski KO 1 Anthony Napunyi
Logan McGuinness UD 6 Gerardo Cuevas
Antonio Russell TKO 1 Brandon Ali Garvin
Edwin Espinal UD 4 Alvaro Enriquez
Immanuwel Aleem TKO 1 David Toribio