Badou Jack (19-1-1, 12 KOs) fought and boxed intelligently enough to score a majority decision victory over Anthony “The Dog” Dirrell (27-1-1, 22 KOs) and capture Dirrell’s super middleweight WBC world title at the UIC Pavilion Chicago, Illinois. The close fight was the main event of Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions Series on Spike TV. The first judge scored the bout even at 114-114 while the other two overruled the decision scoring the fight 116-112 and 115-113 both Jack.
Dirrell, living up to his “dog” nickname, barked at Jack and tried to bait him into a fight on the scales during the weigh in the day before. Even as the referee was giving both fighters instructions before the opening bell, Dirrell tried to psyche Jack out but the Swedish born Jack, who now resides in Las Vegas and trains out of the Mayweather Boxing Club, would have none of that.
Jack was clearly the aggressor and was landed steadily throughout the early rounds. Jack’s jab and body attack clearly bothered Dirrell who suffers his first professional defeat.
By the mid way point Dirrell could only muster throwing one punch at a time while Jack stayed disciplined by throwing his right hand behind his jab and both punches found a home on Dirrell’s face which began to swell up as the fight progressed.
Dirrell attempted to come on in round nine as both men slugged away on the ropes but Dirrell quickly became deflated and his body language looked poor as his punches had little effect on Jack. At the end of the round it as Jack who walked back to his corner holding his arm up.
Dirrell did little in the final rounds to win back the fight as Jack, who is known as “Jack The Ripper” was firmly in control and pushed Dirrell back into the ropes each chance he had. With this performance Jack erased the memory of his first round knockout loss to Derek Edwards last year on showtime.
In the televised co-main event The Miracle Man Daniel Jacobs (29-1 26 KOs) successfully defended his share of the world middleweight championship by stopping Caleb Truax (25-2-2 15 KOs) by TKO in round 12.
After several uneventful rounds, Jacobs took complete control of fight by landing his combinations at will on the fighter from Minnesota.
By round six Jacobs started to let his hands go and stunned Truax with a quick combination against the ropes. Truax developed a small cut underneath his right eye and by round seven his nose was busted open by those furious jabs from Jacobs.
By round 10 Truax sensing he would need a knockout to win the fight started taking risks against Jacobs and landed a good uppercut that woke Jacobs up. Jacobs slugged back at Truax and punctauted the round with another quick combination.
Just when the fight looked as if it would go the disctance, Jacobs landed a a crisp combination of 2 right hooks that sent Truax flying backwards where he was just barely being held up by the ropes. The referee jumped in and ruled it a knockdown. After the standing eight count, Jacobs jumped on Truax and unloaded big right hands pushing Truax back into the ropes. The Miracle Man from Brooklyn loaded up and landed another big right hand which banged off the side of Truax’s head and the referee jumped in to stop the fight.
Jacobs came in to the bout with a 89% knockout percentage.
In the opening bout of the telecast Roberto Garcia (37-3, 23 KOs) defeated James Stevenson (22-2, 15 KOs) by eight round unanimous decision. The judges scored it 77-74, 78-73, 78-73.
The much larger Garcia recovered well after going down in the first round from a short Stevenson uppercut. Garcia stood up and smiled and preceded to stalk Stevenson around the ring. Stevenson, from Baltimore, took this fight on only 2 weeks notice.
After the stunning first round knockdown by Stevenson, Garcia seemed to take control of the fight landing the more aggressive shots including three looping right hooks to end round 3.
The Texan who was a late scratch against Shawn Porter on the first Spike TV card last month, landed big shots in both the seventh round as Stevenson started to fatigue. This win gives Garcia a 10 fight win streak since losing to Antonio Margarito in 2010 in Mexico.
- Vladimir Lik / @VladimirLik
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