The Difference Between Close and Controversial

Sometimes boxing fans just want something to complain about.

After Carl Froch retained his title in stage one of Showtime’s Super Six tournament Saturday night via split decision over Andre Dirrell, many boxing fans went to the message boards and social networking sites claiming “robbery” and blaming “politics” for Dirrell not winning.
Before I begin, it should be noted I scored the fight 114-114 even. Had it not been for a point deduction in the 10th round, Dirrell would have won on my scorecard.
So let’s start with the obvious. The fight took place in Froch’s hometown of Nottingham, England. He was the hometown favorite and the crowd responded as such. Therefore, some have called Froch winning a “hometown decision”.
People who claim this neglect to mention that the three official ringside judges were from Italy, Belgium, and Panama respectively. The referee inside the ring was from Panama as well.
Official scores were 115 – 112 for Froch from the judges from Italy and Belgium. The Panamanian judge scored the bout for Dirrell 114-113. All scores within a reasonable margin considering the competitiveness of the fight.
It was a dirty, yet entertaining, fight to watch. Dirrell constantly held Froch in close towards him. Froch would sometimes respond with rabbit punches and at one point pushed Dirrell to the canvas in frustration. In the 10th round Dirrell was deducted a point for his excessive holding.
It came at an odd moment. However, Dirrell’s constant clinching was getting pretty bad at times and I support more referees’ taking points away for this infraction.
Dirrell fought well at times, especially in the final three rounds. He appeared to have hurt Froch in the 11th round. He boxed well and used his superior speed to land flush combinations on his opponents head. On the contrary, he held and ran too much in the early rounds. In short, he probably allowed it closer than it had to be.
In the end, Froch retains his title with a hard fought split decision. Dirrell will hopefully learn to be more active and not to give away so many rounds in the future.
Neither guy won overwhelmingly. It was close and sometimes hard to score. The scorecards perfectly reflected this.
More Ponderings:
Carl Froch’s girlfriend is incredibly hot and it was very nice to see a picture of her in a bikini on Froch’s calendar on an episode of “Fight camp: 360”. Moments later it was disturbing to see the camera focus out of the calendar in the background and show Froch drinking out of a mug with a picture of himself on it.

Speaking of Froch’s girlfriend, who’s hotter: Froch’s girl or Joe Calzaghe’s girlfriend that was featured on HBO’s ‘24/7’ prior to his bout with Roy Jones?

If Jermain Taylor elects to withdraw from the Super Six tournament and call it a day, I don’t think anyone could really blame him. He’s lost 4 of his last 5 fights with the lone win during that stretch coming against a totally shot Jeff Lacy. Reports indicate that after being KO’d by Arthur Abraham this weekend he suffered a severe concussion and will remain hospitalized in Germany for a few weeks as a precaution.

I was supposed to be in Phoenix this weekend doing play-by-play for the return fights for former heavyweight champ Shannon Briggs and former cruiserweight champ Vassily Jirov. Both the broadcast and Brigg’s fight was cancelled after he suffered an injury during the week leading up to the fight. Hopefully he can make his return soon and hopefully I’ll be sitting ringside with the call.

Jirov’s fight did go on against a late sub named Jonathan Williams. Williams, a journeyman with a .500 record, managed to drop Jirov in the first round. Jirov responded by dropping Williams three times in the second frame en route to a stoppage win. Sounds like a fun fight!

Whatever the outcome of Tomasz Adamek’s heavyweight debut against fellow Pole Andrew Golata is next weekend, I this is just a one off fight at heavyweight for Adamek and he returns to cruiserweight for a rematch with Steve Cunningham. One of the networks needs to pony up some cash and make this fight happen. HBO and Showtime: Are you listening?