BRITAIN?S OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST DEGALE BEATS DIRRELL FOR WORLD TITLE AND CREATES HISTORY
By Ronnie Nathanielsz
PhilBoxing.com
Sun, 24 May 2015
Britain?s James DeGale beat American Andre Dirrell via a unanimous twelve round decision to win the vacant IBF super middleweight title and became the first Briton to win an Olympic gold medal and a world title as a professional.
In a battle of southpaws, DeGale nailed Dirrell with a devastating left and dropped the 31 year old who did make what BBC Sport reported was a remarkable recovery and connected with some good shots as DeGale began to tire but the Brit came through with a late flurry to seal the victory.
The 2008 Olympic gold medalist won a unanimous decision with American judge Daniel Fitzgerald and British judge Howard Foster both scoring it for DeGale 114-112, while Canadian judge Alan Davis scored it by a much wider 117-109 margin.
In a post fight interview DeGale said "It's an unbelievable feeling, I'm world champ - I made history."
With the win DeGale improved his record to 21-1 with 14 knockouts.
DeGale won the Olympic gold medal in what was described as a bad-tempered middleweight final against Cuba?s Emilio Correa.
DeGale had what the BBC reported was a superb start and was ahead 6-1 after the opening round when Correa was penalized two points for biting the British boxer?s shoulder.
DeGale was ahead 10-4 at the halfway mark but as the bout got increasinglky scrappy Correa clawed back to reduce the lead to two points but DeGale hung on for the win.
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