Dirrell stops St Juste in 4th; Romero defeats Avalos

By Boxing News - 12/03/2011 - Comments

Image: Dirrell stops St Juste in 4th; Romero defeats AvalosBy Scott Gilfoid: Photo: Casino/Showtime – Showing poise and talent that most fighters would absolutely die far, unbeaten super middleweight contender Anthony Dirrell (24-0, 21 KO’s) stopped Canadian contender Renan St Juste (23-3-1, 15 KO’s) in the 4th round on Friday night to become the World Boxing Council (WBC) mandatory challenger.

Using pinpoint punching and constantly changing fighting stances, Dirrell looked like a sharpshooter tonight, tagging St Juste with lead right hands and left hands and keeping him guessing. St Juste injured his left shoulder in the 4th round shortly after the two fighters banged heads. An angry Dirrell teed off on St Juste after the action resumed and the fight was quickly halted due to St Juste injuring his shoulder.

It’s unclear whether the injury occurred during the headbutt episode or seconds after. In either case, Dirrell won the fight and was the superior fighter in the three previous rounds. The fight was officially halted at 2:54 of the round.

Dirrell, ranked #1 by the WBC, is now waiting his turn for a shot against WBC champion Carl Froch. With his incredible boxing skills, which reminded me a lot of Floyd Mayweather Jr., I see Dirrell already good enough to beat Froch. It’s too bad Froch will likely lose his next fight against WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward on December 17th in their Super Six tournament finals bout, because I would love to see Dirrell face Froch and add another scalp to his resume. Dirrell has got the whole package – speed, power, counter punching ability and defense. I think he’s a shade slower than his talented brother Andre Dirrell in terms of hand speed, but a bigger puncher and more relaxed. Anthony doesn’t move as well as his brother Andre, but he seems more willing to control his fights with his hand speed, power and counter punching ability, and so he doesn’t seem to feel he needs to move. He’s a lot like the current version of Mayweather in that respect.

In other action on the card, super bantamweight Jhonathan Romero won a controversial 10 round split decision over Chris Avalos. The judges’ scores were 95-94, 96-93 and 96-94 for Romero.



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