Froch beats Dirrell by split decision

Sunday 18th October 2009 written by Gareth Robinson

At 3.33am in the early hours of Sunday morning Carl successfully defended his WBC title at the Nottingham Arena with a split decision victory over an elusive and defensively minded boxer in Andre Dirrell.

The fight was not Carl's finest hour and we did not have a repeat of the drama experienced last December when Carl successfully defeated Jean Pascal. However, Carl did what he needed to do and managed to get the 2 points which puts him in a good position for the next stage of the tournament.

From the start it was obvious that Dirrell was looking to fight from a distance as opposed to getting into a brawl with Carl.

Below is some video footage that I managed to get from my Block 9, F12 seat of the ring walks.

Dirrell entered the ring first and was greeted by a crescendo of boos and chants of "Who are ya" and Dirrell's management did not help themselves with the guy waving the US flag in an annoying way (you would have to be there to know what I mean).

Carl entered his ring to his signature tunes "We will rock you" followed by "Welcome to the Jungle" one of my favorite 80's tunes.

The ring announcer was Jimmy Lennon Senior. Frank Buffer (the voice of boxing) was the ring announcer for the Taylor vs. Abraham fight.

Carl started agressively and was consistently moving forward taking the fight to Dirrell who seemed content to dance around and keep Froch at bay. Whilst this allowed him to stay the distance it was not a style that was loved by the judges nor the audience for that matter.

As the fight progressed more and more holding was instigated by Dirrell much to the frustration of Carl and the Nottingham fans. Dirrell slipped a number of times and regularly looked to the referee and complained about Carl hitting him behind the head.

Round 10 saw Dirrell being a deducted a point for excessive holding which Dirrell complained about vehemently although that was not really going to affect the outcome.

Towards the latter part of the fight Carl did managed to land some shots on Dirrell but not enough to make it a convincing victory.

The tensest part of the fight was when it was announced that it was a split decision. The tension in the arena was definitely noticeable and was a mixture of nervousness and surprise.

Dirrell was the winner 114-113 on the first result card with Carl being the winner in the eyes of the other 2 judges both scoring the bout 115-113 in his favour. I had it in Carl's favour. So I was more on target with my Froch prediciton for this fight (where I predicted a UD) vs the Taylor Abraham fight where I was way off after predicting a Taylor victory.

Did Carl do enough to win? In my opinion Carl was most defintely the victor tonight by virtue of being the aggressor throughout the fight and by landing more of the power punches. Dirrell is still very much in this tournament and I must admit I was very impressed by his movement and his ability to dodge Carl's punches. What he is lacking right now is an impressive offense to match his defensive skills. If he does not work on that he will struggle to win any away matchup he is involved in.

As for Carl, he must be happy to have started the tournament with a win but he will be probably disappointed in himself and for his fans that the fight did not live up to the prematch hype even though it was not his fault.

Post fight quotes

Carl Froch

"I'm a little bit dissatisfied but I can only beat what's in front of me," he told BBC Radio 5 live.

"We never really stood and had a trade and got going with anything."

"A win's a win, he can't expect to come to Nottingham and beat me by running and holding and complaining. "

"Andre Dirrell is very fast, very skilful, very slick; if you couple that together with negativity, which is what he brought tonight, you're going to get a bit of a dud fight."

"I don't feel like I got hit or hurt at any stage. I felt comfortable all the way. Through the whole fight, I didn't feel hurt or jaded or fazed, it was just comfortable."

"I disagree with the split decision, but that's professional boxing, it's subjective scoring."

Andre Dirrell

"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 (the referee) took the point from me.

"I'm still clueless on the point for leaning on him. 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."

“I’ve worked my ass to get where I need to be,” he said. “Now I know can go 12. I just got to get in the gym, learn from my mistakes, and execute my game plan a little better next time.”

Dirrell Froch Fight - news Articles

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