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The top fight card over the weekend took place at the Armory in America’s capital Washington DC, as WBC super middle champ Badou Jack tangled with former IBF titlist Lucian Bute.
Bute started the contest on overdrive, presenting a constantly moving target and throwing lots of punches. The challenger took the early rounds by outworking Jack but the champion began to spear Bute with many hard rights to the body during the middle rounds.
That apporach had the desired effect of slowing down the Montreal based Bute but the southpaw began to find a home for an accurate lead left hand to the head that Jack had no answers to.
It was a difficult fight to score and in the end, one judge favored Jack’s harder punching with a surprisingly wide margin of 117-111 while the remaining cards were even at 114-114, allowing Jack to keep his title with a majority draw.
Bute, 32-3-1 (25), put on his best performance in years and could see a rematch with the champion later this year. Jack moves to 20-1-2 (12), retaining his crown for the second time but has yet to win a title defense in convincing fashion.
On the undercard, IBF super middle champion James DeGale was in a hard scrap with challenger Rogelio Medina.
Medina applied relentless pressure but had difficulty with the awkward, constantly switching stances of DeGale, who, characteristically, threw punches from odd angles.
DeGale had particular success with sneak uppercuts but got caught with a lot of straight punches and hooks from his rugged Mexican rival, a result of the champion staying closer to Medina and slugging it out during the first half of the contest.
The Englishman won the scorecards 117-111, 116-112 and 115-113 to retain his title for the second time but definitely did not win over the fans in attendance, who loudly booed DeGale after the fight.
They were likely objecting to Degale’s distasteful and immature practice of sticking his tongue out at Medina after the later rounds ended, particularly after the final round when boxers generally show respect to one another.
Medina drops to 36-7 (30), while DeGale improves to 23-1 (14) and could face Badou Jack next in a unification clash.
At the StubHub Center in Carson, California, former welterweight world champs Andre Berto, 31-4 (24), and Victor Ortiz, 31-6-2 (24), reprised their incredible slugfest of 2011, which Ortiz won.
Berto was floored in the second but regrouped to drop and finish off Ortiz at 1:14 of the fourth round, revenging the previous loss. Berto breathes new life into his career while Ortiz has gone 2-4 since the first Berto countest, with all losses coming inside the distance.
There were two decent fight cards in America on Friday with the super middleweight former world champion Dirrell brothers headlining the bill at Atlantic City’s Taj Mahal.
Anthony Dirrell, 29-1-1 (23), had the better result, quickly gunning down Caleb Truax, 26-3-2 (16), at 1:14 of the first round while Andre Dirrell, 25-2 (16), had to come off the floor in the second round to outbox Blake Caparello, 22-2-1 (6), by scores of 98-91 on all three cards during a ten round battle of southpaws.
Chief attraction on the undercard was heavy-handed super bantam Jonathan Guzman, 21-0 (21), who kept his perfect record and quest for a world title shot intact by dropping Daniel Rosas, 20-3-1 (12), twice before Rosas stayed in his corner after the eighth round.
At Southwest University Event Center in El Paso, Texas, local woman Jennifer Han, 14-3-1 (1), retained her IBF female featherweight crown by winning all ten rounds against challenger Calixta Silgado, 14-6-3 (9).
Going way back to last Wednesday, there was a big upset in Japan as long-reigning WBA super feather king Takashi Uchiyama, 24-1-1 (20), was dethroned in shocking fashion by Panamanian southpaw Jezreel Corrales, 20-1 (8), at Ota City General Gymnasium in Tokyo.
Corrales came in as the WBA Interim champ but was given little chance by most against the power punching champion, who had made 11 consecutive defenses, but the challenger was much faster than Uchiyama, who was down three times in the second frame and declared knocked out with one second remaining in the round.
In support bouts, WBA super fly king Kohei Kono, 32-8-1 (13), continued his second reign as champion by outscoring challenger Inthanon Sithchamuang, 28-8-1 (17), by 119-106 on all three scorecards and Ryoichi Taguchi, 24-2-1 (11), stopped challenger Juan Jose Landaeta, 27-9-1 (21), who did not come out for the final round of the contest.
