By Peter Wells: Hours after Andre Dirrell was knocked out cold by Arthur Abraham while he was down, the news has finally come through that Dirrell was negative on brain scans. He has been released from hospital and should be recovering with family now. After an outstanding display from the American, Arthur threw a punch about 5 seconds after Dirrell had slipped to the canvas, probably caused by the water they used to clear up the blood around Abraham’s cut.

The punch was a typical power shot from Abraham that he had failed to land all fight, with no guard and not expecting a punch like that to come his way, Andre Dirrell fell back and seemed to be having a seizure. But due to great reactions from the referee and doctors they were able to get to Andre straight away. The referee did an outstanding job to straight away get Dirrell to the recovery position, which had it been anything serious, could have been a life saving move.

Dirrell was pretty much in his element, throwing plenty early and even scoring a fantastic knockdown, the first of Abraham’s career. Despite Arthur attempting to come back, he had little success and was picked off with some beautiful counters. Dirrell did amazingly to dodge the punches that came his way, but later on went to the ropes too many times and had his hands down pretty low. Abraham was still in the fight, even though it was mathematically impossible for him to win on points, he was always in the fight due to his outstanding power.

The knockdown scored by Dirrell was a cracking one; it was an amazing swinging left hook that caught Arthur flush on the chin. To his credit though he was off balance; but it was Dirrell who took the opportunity and caught him at the right moment. Abraham was back up without a problem and Dirrell did believe he could stop him, but the turtle shell defence stopped that from happening. Dirrell then carried on for the next two rounds, pounding away while moving backwards, making Abraham miss with the few shots he through. Abraham moved forward more as the fight progressed but for the first few rounds of the second half of the fight, he was countered at will and was struggling to get inside. As the fight got to it’s final third, Arthur had more success, but was still getting caught and after an inspection on the nasty cut over his right eye he sensed real urgency. Andre did the only thing he could do; run, counter when he could and make sure he doesn’t get caught flush. His reflexes when against the ropes were textbook, even with hands by his side he couldn’t be caught.

Abraham dropped to 31-1, losing for the first time in his career, while Andre moved to 19-1. It was an ugly end to a truly wonderful fight, I really hope that Andre has a 100% recovery and comes back even stronger for the Andre Ward fight, the top lot squeeze up even tighter now, and it’s all to fight for.

We saw Andre Ward’s perfect execution last November and that was Dirrell’s, he knew exactly what to do, and he executed it brilliantly. The next fight between the two Olympians should be one to enjoy.