On Saturday night in Boston, James DeGale made history by becoming Great Britain's first gold medalist to win a world title in boxing when he beat Andre Dirrell for the vacant IBF super middleweight championship.
James DeGale showed he was worthy of being a champion in the second round when he got a bad cut over his right eye in the beginning of the round and by the end he had knocked Dirrell down twice with brutal overhand lefts. The overhand left was Chunky's best punch and he landed it very hard and hurt Dirrell badly. The two knockdowns would end up being the difference makers in the fight.
Dirrell took command in the middle rounds by being the much more active fighter and being very effective with his attacks, along with a jab that seemed to be landing at will during this period.
The fight was a very close one, which saw Dirrell down by two points on two scorecards in the 10th round. Dirrell needed to win decisively in the last two rounds to earn a draw but the fighters split the last rounds.
The judges generally had a good sense of how the fight went with Dan Fitzgerald (Massachusetts) in just his second world title bout had it right on with a score of 114-112, Alan Davis (Canada) had the fight 117-109 and veteran Howard Foster (UK) scored the bout 114-112.
The judges clearly had the closely contested fight spot on with James DeGale as the unanimous winner, though Davis' card had a whopping eight point differential which from the TV screen at home seemed far too wide, especially considering the other two judges had just a two point differential in their scores.
As a judge, this writer saw the bout a close one at 114-112 for the winner DeGale, where there were many close rounds that could have gone either way. The fight was close enough that before the championship rounds, this writer's scorecard was even at 94-94.
Below is the scorecard of the fight courtesy of Boxing Scene:
Carlos Sucre Jr's scorecard: