Froch defeats Dirrel via controversial points decison
The title will have to wait for another day, another fight. Andre Dirrell's first bid for a world boxing championship was repelled Saturday night when the he lost a 12-round split decision to Carl Froch in a super-middleweight bout at Trenton FM Arena in Froch's hometown of Nottingham, England.
Dirrell (18-1, 13 KOs) was going after Froch's WBC belt but instead absorbed the first loss of his four-year professional career. Froch improved to 26-0 with 20 KOs in his second title defense. Two judges scored it 115-112 in favour of Froch, while Dirrell won the other card 114-113.
Dirrell, 27, is still alive in the opening round of the Super Six World Boxing Classic created and broadcast by Showtime, with two more fights guaranteed and more if he finishes among the top four point-getters in the round-robin stage. He is scheduled to face Arthur Abraham, probably in late January, and then Jermain Taylor.
Abraham knocked out Taylor with six seconds left in their earlier fight in Berlin. Froch, a slight favourite by odds makers, proved a difficult foe on his home turf before 8,000 partisan fans. Dirrell frustrated him early with his elusiveness and counterpunching ability. He nailed the Briton with a left in the third but Froch chased him back and landed a right.
Froch's frustration boiled over in the fifth, when he was cautioned after throwing Dirrell to the canvas and again for hitting on the break.
The sixth round got ugly with a lot of clinching and both fighters were warned for hitting on the break. Dirrell lost some of his composure in the seventh, complaining to the referee at one point and getting hit by a right while doing so. But Dirrell ended the round with a good left.
Dirrell had a point taken away in the 10th for holding, but he scored big with a left later in the round. Dirrell dominated the 11th, the first time he has seen that round in his career, but his trainer and grandfather, Leon Lawson, told him in the corner he needed a knockout in the 12th, and Dirrell couldn't get it.
Dirrell came into the fight ranked second in the WBC behind former Olympic teammate Andre Ward. Ward will fight WBA champ Mikkel Kessler on November 21 in California. Dirrell could still wind up with both the WBC and WBA belts by the time the tournament finishes in early summer 2011. But he would have to win his next four fights in a schedule that will only get tougher as it goes along.
Froch, who extended his unbeaten run to twenty-six fights, had this to say;
"I'm a little bit dissatisfied but I can only beat what's in front of me. We never really stood and had a trade and got going with anything. I don't know how he expected to come to my hometown and take the WBC belt fighting like that."
"Nobody likes to see someone running and being negative and I think people recognised that I was trying to make a fight of it. I like to stand there and have a fight and give the fans and the TV viewers a real show but Dirrell wasn't interested in that kind of fight."
Dirrell did not believe Froch deserved to retain his crown or pick up two points in boxing's groundbreaking new tournament, Dirrell said;
"I thought I held him off enough, boxed him enough to get a decision. We know where we're at but I'm going to hold my head with pride.
I still don't know why he took the point from me. He'd been holding me, hitting me in the back of the head the whole time, bringing me down on one knee. He'd been rough the whole fight."