Dirrell: No way I lost the fight

By Boxing News - 05/23/2015 - Comments

_MG_2090(Photo credit: Suzanne Teresa/Premier Boxing Champions) By Scott Gilfoid: Boxing fans in Boston are in shock tonight in what many of them felt was a daylight robbery involving Andre Dirrell (24-1, 16 KOs) on the receiving end of a highly controversial 12 round unanimous decision loss to visiting fighter James DeGale (21-1, 14 KOs) at the Agganis Arena, in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. When you see decisions like this, it just makes you shake your head. Whatever the case, I think Dirrell won the fight. If you wanted to be kind to DeGale, you could call it a draw, but that’s it.

The scoring for this fight was just so, so sad. I don’t know what to think of it myself. The judges scored it 114-112, 117-109 and 114-112. Frankly, I didn’t give DeGale more than 4 rounds, and I didn’t count the second knockdown.

Dirrell fought valiantly after getting knocked down twice in what was initially a flash knockdown followed by a shove in the 2nd round. The referee still counted the second knockdown, even though it was a clear push from what I saw. I also noticed DeGale landing a shot while Dirrell was on the canvas.

I don’t know what referee Leo Gerstel was doing at the time, but he sure as heck should have been taking points off. Like many, Dirrell felt he did more than enough to deserve the decision. Quite rightly so, Dirrell pointed out how DeGale was running, and how the judges should have been able to recognize that he wasn’t fighting aggressively enough to deserve the victory.

Dirrell had this to say about the fight: “They said I ran from Carl Froch and they took that fight from me. He ran tonight and they gave it to him. All he did was run, no way I lost this fight.”

I totally agree with you, Mr. Dirrell. You did a fine job tonight with the way you fought. I don’t know what fight these judges were watching, but the one I saw, I had Dirrell winning by a comfortable decision. I couldn’t in my right mind give the fight to DeGale because he was running for the hills the last 8 rounds of the fight. I mean, he had a good 2nd, and maybe did the better work in the 11th and 12th, but that wasn’t nearly enough for him to be given the decision in my view. You got to do better than win 3-4 rounds to win a fight, especially when you’re shoving guys to the canvas and then looking to land the coup de grace while they’re down.

I thought Dirrell fought a beautiful fight, one of the best I’ve ever seen from him. After all this time, I had forgotten how great of a fighter he is. For a moment there, I thought I was watching a replay of the Carl Froch vs. Andre Dirrell fight from 2009. It was that exciting. With the way that the momentum turned after the 3rd round from DeGale to Dirrell dominating the action.



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