Dan Rafael and Graham Houston think Froch deserved the victory.

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/boxing/columns/story?columnist=rafael_dan&id=4575349

Records: Froch, 26-0, 20 KOs; Dirrell, 18-1, 13 KOs

Rafael's remark: Froch isn't the smoothest or most skilled boxer, but he makes up for it with a physical, relentless style. It served him well when he outslugged Jean Pascal (who would go on to win a light heavyweight belt) to win a vacant super middleweight title in December. It served him well when he rallied to starch Jermain Taylor with 14 seconds left in the fight in his first defense in April. And it served him well again as he eked out a split decision against Flint, Mich., native and 2004 U.S. Olympic bronze medalist Dirrell to retain his title in a Group Stage 1 match of Showtime's Super Six World Boxing Classic six-man super middleweight tournament. Froch had the luxury of fighting in his hometown, but had to enter the ring in the wee hours of the morning to accommodate Showtime's live telecast to the East Coast of the United States while Dirrell had simply stayed on his normal body schedule for the fight.

Dirrell also fought in his normal negative, agonizing style. He ran, he cried to the referee about just about everything and he held. And grabbed. And wrestled. At times, it was like watching a smaller, faster, more skilled version of John Ruiz. It was ugly. When Dirrell, who has all the talent in the world but still fights like an amateur, would stand and fight, he landed some nice counter right hands. But he didn't do it nearly enough.

The first half of the fight was an abomination because of Dirrell's unwillingness to do anything but run and grab. All the while, Froch was making the fight, coming forward and firing in what degenerated into a somewhat dirty fight. But in the eighth round, Froch nailed Dirrell with a left hook late in the round that definitely rattled him. Both fighters fouled each other often with low blows, elbows, blows to the back of the head and punches on the break. Referee Hector Afu did his best, but had a very hard time maintaining control. Both guys could have had points deducted at various times but Afu did not pull the trigger until finally docking a point from Dirrell for holding and hitting in the 10th round, during which Dirrell hurt Froch with two hard left hands. In the end, two judges gave it to Froch, which was the right call. How can you give Dirrell the fight when, for the most part, he fought scared, complained to the referee about everything and barely threw any punches in the first half or two-thirds of the fight? He finished very strong, but it wasn't enough to warrant or deserve the decision. At best, he could have had a draw, which would have still not given him the title.

Froch, 32, picked up two points for the victory and will move on to face Mikkel Kessler in a Group Stage 2 bout to be scheduled for sometime around March. If Kessler defeats Andre Ward in their Group Stage 1 bout on Nov. 21, Kessler-Froch would be a title unification bout. Dirrell, who along with Ward is the most inexperienced fighter in the field, didn't hurt himself too badly with the loss. He gained valuable experience and showed he can compete with the top dogs in the division. But he needs to do more fighting and less running. He has a very tough Group Stage 2 bout. Arthur Abraham is supposed to come to the United States from Germany to face Dirrell, 26, in late January. That's a very, very tough fight.


http://www.fightwriter.com/?q=node/2422

There have been far worse decisions than the one that saw Carl Froch hang on to his WBC super middleweight title with a split decision win over Andre Dirrell in the second of the “Super Six” tournament’s first-stage bouts on Saturday night. Earlier in the evening, Arthur Abraham left no room for doubt with a dominant performance ending in a spectacular last-seconds knockout win over Jermain Taylor in Berlin.

I was in the minority in picking a Dirrell upset win and I know I am in the minority again when I offer the opinion that Froch did enough to scrape home on points.

If this was a boxing match scored by the electronic system used in the Olympics, I have no doubt that Dirrell would have got the verdict. He almost certainly landed more clean punches on target than did Froch.

OK, so why wasn’t it Dirrell getting his arm raised at the end of the bout?

This is where it gets a bit tricky.

There were several rounds, as I saw it, that were open to doubt. That is, a judge could have scored these rounds in either boxer’s favour and not necessarily been wrong.

Dirrell was just as fast as anticipated. The young man from Flint, MI, was clever and intelligent and he showed some grit when rallying in the last three rounds — rounds that one would have expected the more experienced Froch to be dominating. The 10th and 11th were, I thought, Dirrell’s two strongest rounds, with the harsh deduction of a point seeming to spur him on rather than disheartening him.

Unfortunately, Dirrell was his own worst enemy. There were flashes of evasive brilliance, but at other times Dirrell seemed to be in full flight, reminding me a bit of Oscar De La Hoya’s backpedalling down the stretch that cost him the decision against Felix Trinidad. At other times Dirrell would almost jump into clinches, and he complained to the referee a little too often about being roughed up. (What happened to the days when fighters would fight and leave the refereeing to the referee?)

All of the above was surely giving the judges a negative impression of Dirrell’s performance. This impression would no doubt have been reinforced by the frequent cautions that referee Hector Afu, of Panama, issued to Dirrell for holding Froch or leaning on him in the clinches.

Then we come to Froch. The British fighter looked crude at times, and he threw some wild misses, but he was pressing ahead constantly and he gave the impression that, at all times, he wanted to fight. Dirrell, meanwhile, was presenting an image — for much of the fight — of a boxer who was trying to avoid contact, spoil, and steal rounds.

Froch was fighting like the man who was in command of the fight. Professional judges take note of that.

I’m thinking back to the famous heavyweight fight between Muhammad Ali and Jimmy Young in 1976. The unanimous decision in Ali’s favour was roundly criticised, as I recall. Young seemed, in the opinion of the crowd and most of the American TV viewers, to have outscored Ali. Everyone agrees that Ali looked dreadful in that fight but Young was excessively cautious in most of the early rounds and on several occasions — perhaps as many as six times — ducked his head through the ropes to avoid punches.

I think that in this fight it wasn’t so much that the judges were giving the rounds to Ali as not giving the rounds to Young.

This is what I think happened in the Froch-Dirrell fight. I suspect that there were several rounds where the two judges who had Froch winning felt that they couldn’t bring themselves to give rounds to a challenger who had been unassertive. No, this has nothing to do with the fallacy that a challenger has to beat a champion clearly to win the title: when two boxers are in the ring it is just a matter of the judges deciding which of them won or lost each round. A judge does not sit down to score a fight thinking that the champion has a built-in advantage simply because he holds the title — you’ll have to trust me on this.

Dirrell would most likely have won the decision had he fought a couple more rounds the way he did the 10th and 11th, but some credit has to be given to Froch for forcing the challenger to box cautiously — there was a reason why the American boxer didn’t want to take chances.

I did think that the referee was extremely harsh in taking the point from Dirrell for leaning on Froch. There were infringements on both sides here. Froch was manhandling Dirrell, hitting him behind the head and on the break, and he surely should have had a point taken for tossing Dirrell to the floor, just as Marco Antonio Barrera was docked a point for running Naseem Hamed’s head into the ring-post cushion in Las Vegas, or as Hamed was penalised for body-slamming Cesar Soto to the canvas in Detroit — Dirrell could have suffered an injury when he was thrown over, and then we would have been looking at big-fight fiasco. The ref seemed, to me, to be favouring Froch.

Maybe the Nottingham crowd had some effect on the way the fight was judged, with roars even when the hometown favourite was missing with his big hooks and right hands, but this is why home advantage can be crucial in a close fight. The American camp knew this going in. The challenger’s trainer and grandfather Leon Lawson got it right when he told Dirrell to go for the stoppage in the 12th: “We ain’t getting a decision here.”

If the fight had been in, say, Las Vegas, or the Mohegan Sun, or another U.S.venue, Dirrell might well have left the ring as the new champion. Froch got the breaks on Saturday, Dirrell didn’t. As American real-estate agents impress upon their clients: “Location, location, location.”

In the Showtime coverage, which was my vehicle for viewing the fight, analyst Al Bernstein had Dirrell edging it but didn’t seem too sure. In the British broadcast, commentator John Rawling of the new PPV platform Primetime had Dirrell winning (I know this because he sent me an email to this effect after the fight), while I’m told that ex-fighter analyst Jon Thaxton also scored it for Dirrell while pundit Steve Bunce went for Froch.

Like I said before, my initial viewing had me seeing a crappy fight with Froch deserving the nod because he was at least making the fight for the majority of the rounds. I am going to download the fight today and watch it tomorrow when I have time. I'm curious to see if my mind changes.

It seems a lot of the boxing writers have no issues with Froch getting the verdict.

If Dirrell would have boxed for the first 10 rounds i would have no problem of giving it to him. Instead he fought for 2 rounds, rounds 11 and 12, only after he got froch tired enough from swinging at air all night. dirrell flat out refused to even box for the first 10 rounds. Froch didn't land much and he looked terribly slow compared to dirrell, but with dirrells superhuman speed he should have picked froch apart for the whole 12 rounds instead of 2. How do you give it to a guy that just didn't want to fight?

It's funny to me how people see things different, and some fighters are praised for this tactic, and others roasted.

Dirrell and Raheem got roasted. Floyd Mayweather gets praised.

I thought Dirrell gave away the fight. Much the way I feel about some of PBF's wins.

He was so obviously faster and skilled he should have done much more. Since he didn't, he wasn't given the fight.

That's not fair after seeing the fight a few times, Dirrell wanted to fight, he just didn't want to fight like somebody would fight Ricky Hatton. When they were actually boxing Dirrell had no problem with what Froch was doing, but then Froch started hitting him on the break and using Hopkins' tactics to hit and hold. The only option was for Dirrell to hold the cheap ass Froch. I thought Dirrel won by a few rounds, but it wasn't an impressive performance. The times Dirrell went down in the 7th I believe I think he should have, he would slip punches and Froch was putting his body weight on Dirrell, those are some of the most tiring moments in the ring is when you are bending over and somebody is putting their body weight on you. Also for somebody who dodges punches a lot of the times Froch would keep his left hand out and have it follow Dirrell's head around like a target finder, and that is illegal and in trying to avoid Dirrell would go down and Froch put his forearm on Andre's back and pushed him down.

It honeslty looked like Saddler-Pep without Dirrell going down to Froch's level with the cheap shit. If you put any american ref in there, Froch would have had points deducted for punches to the back of the head, and without those he had no argument winning the fight.

I have to give Froch credit though because he was so effective on the inside for such a tall guy, I think he possed a lot of the same problems that Castillo gave Mayweather in their fights. It was really hard for Floyd to get off because Castillo was so dangerous on the inside and he wasn't making it easy for Floyd to counter, Froch made it a lot more difficult than people are giving him credit for, and I am very interested to see how he does against the likes of Kessler and Ward because he is so strong as super middleweight, and he is super awkward to fight. But I argue that Froch was making the fight, it was his cheap tactics and bullshit that made Dirrell fight the way he was, IN the first six rounds Dirrell was easily beating Froch (4-2 or 5-1) and there was nothing Carl could do, but to become cheap.

I don't see the athletic ability in Froch that I saw in Calzaghe, but I see the same awkwardness, far more punching power, and that ability to win fights and be rough.

All in all I can see where the writers are saying that Dirrell could have done so much more to win this fight, especially this being his up and coming moment, but in the end its who landed the best punches and who did the best boxing, and because Dirrell won everytime they were boxing, and Froch barely landed anything that was considered boxing I can't give the fight to Froch.

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Originally Posted by luvfightgame

It's funny to me how people see things different, and some fighters are praised for this tactic, and others roasted.

Dirrell and Raheem got roasted. Floyd Mayweather gets praised.

I thought Dirrell gave away the fight. Much the way I feel about some of PBF's wins.

He was so obviously faster and skilled he should have done much more. Since he didn't, he wasn't given the fight.

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Mayweather is a lot tougher than Dirrell as a fighter, and the only fight that Mayweather may have given away was against Castillo in their first fight, he has no other fight that are even close to being disputable in terms of who won.

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Originally Posted by Taeth

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Originally Posted by luvfightgame

It's funny to me how people see things different, and some fighters are praised for this tactic, and others roasted.

Dirrell and Raheem got roasted. Floyd Mayweather gets praised.

I thought Dirrell gave away the fight. Much the way I feel about some of PBF's wins.

He was so obviously faster and skilled he should have done much more. Since he didn't, he wasn't given the fight.

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Mayweather is a lot tougher than Dirrell as a fighter, and the only fight that Mayweather may have given away was against Castillo in their first fight, he has no other fight that are even close to being disputable in terms of who won.

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funny how that DLH fight has a big SD next to the W :rolleyes:

Funny how Oscar almost constantly gets too much credit from judges :-\ Floyd 8-4'd him at worst.

I thought Dirrell won clearly as I've said before. I don't give a shit what Rafael says about anything unless he's breaking news. I do respect Houston's opinion, not enough to read his explanation but still.

Graham Houston surprises me but whatever. Dan Rafael, I'm pretty sure Showtime has lined his pockets. Maybe not but wtf is he talking about? Afu tried his best? Both fighters went at it with rabbit punches? His article isn't a fair capture of the fight, Graham Houston wrote by far the better article then the crap spewing Rafael. I appreciate how hard Rafael works at ESPN getting us all the big news on boxing. OK, that's fine. But I have turned on him I find him pompous and sometimes delusional. Big surprise Bunce went for Froch.

Well I watched it yesterday for the 1st time and it was (imo) a lot closer than a lot of you guys said. I was expecting a shut out when I came on here and read the comments. Having said that I would find it hard to make a case for Froch winning the fight.

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Originally Posted by BIG H

Well I watched it yesterday for the 1st time and it was (imo) a lot closer than a lot of you guys said. I was expecting a shut out when I came on here and read the comments. Having said that I would find it hard to make a case for Froch winning the fight.

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What makes me laugh is the guys watch fights every week, cry robbery every other week, and yet still act shocked/disgusted/horrified when a fight goes to the man they thought lost.

At least it makes for some fun threads. ;D

That fight had debatable decision written all over it from the third round (barring a KO of course).

Houston is the man.

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Originally Posted by luvfightgame

It's funny to me how people see things different, and some fighters are praised for this tactic, and others roasted.

Dirrell and Raheem got roasted. Floyd Mayweather gets praised.

I thought Dirrell gave away the fight. Much the way I feel about some of PBF's wins.

He was so obviously faster and skilled he should have done much more. Since he didn't, he wasn't given the fight.

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I'd put Dirrell in the same sort of basket as PBF. Highly talented but unwilling to challenge themselves and unwilling to engage. I'm not asking for a war, just for less rope sliding and running. Dirrell looks like he has the speed and power to just bamboozle and totally blow guys out of there before theyv'e had a few good breaths..... Maybe he's just scared to take a good dig....

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Originally Posted by themacmagician

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Originally Posted by luvfightgame

It's funny to me how people see things different, and some fighters are praised for this tactic, and others roasted.

Dirrell and Raheem got roasted. Floyd Mayweather gets praised.

I thought Dirrell gave away the fight. Much the way I feel about some of PBF's wins.

He was so obviously faster and skilled he should have done much more. Since he didn't, he wasn't given the fight.

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I'd put Dirrell in the same sort of basket as PBF. Highly talented but unwilling to challenge themselves and unwilling to engage. I'm not asking for a war, just for less rope sliding and running. Dirrell looks like he has the speed and power to just bamboozle and totally blow guys out of there before theyv'e had a few good breaths..... Maybe he's just scared to take a good dig....

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Admittedly, I'm a Floyd fan... but I see a big difference between Mayweather and Dirrell. Floyd goes into a defensive shell and counter punches. Even when a fighters on top of him, he'll use his forearm or shoulder to back a guy up .. but moreover he's standing his ground, waiting to counter. He does use the ring and movement to pick his spots but eventually he comes forward rather than raising his gloves and running away while smiling at you with a stupid grin. He's not a full steam ahead slugger that is constantly on the attack but he's not whining, running one minute then smiling the next while he was running away.

Not as notable as Dan Rafael or Graham Houston by any means, but a person with a BIG american bias, Greg Leon of BOXINGTALK, also had Froch winning.

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Originally Posted by Taeth

That's not fair after seeing the fight a few times, Dirrell wanted to fight, he just didn't want to fight like somebody would fight Ricky Hatton. When they were actually boxing Dirrell had no problem with what Froch was doing, but then Froch started hitting him on the break and using Hopkins' tactics to hit and hold. The only option was for Dirrell to hold the cheap ass Froch. I thought Dirrel won by a few rounds, but it wasn't an impressive performance. The times Dirrell went down in the 7th I believe I think he should have, he would slip punches and Froch was putting his body weight on Dirrell, those are some of the most tiring moments in the ring is when you are bending over and somebody is putting their body weight on you. Also for somebody who dodges punches a lot of the times Froch would keep his left hand out and have it follow Dirrell's head around like a target finder, and that is illegal and in trying to avoid Dirrell would go down and Froch put his forearm on Andre's back and pushed him down.

It honeslty looked like Saddler-Pep without Dirrell going down to Froch's level with the cheap shit. If you put any american ref in there, Froch would have had points deducted for punches to the back of the head, and without those he had no argument winning the fight.

I have to give Froch credit though because he was so effective on the inside for such a tall guy, I think he possed a lot of the same problems that Castillo gave Mayweather in their fights. It was really hard for Floyd to get off because Castillo was so dangerous on the inside and he wasn't making it easy for Floyd to counter, Froch made it a lot more difficult than people are giving him credit for, and I am very interested to see how he does against the likes of Kessler and Ward because he is so strong as super middleweight, and he is super awkward to fight. But I argue that Froch was making the fight, it was his cheap tactics and bullshit that made Dirrell fight the way he was, IN the first six rounds Dirrell was easily beating Froch (4-2 or 5-1) and there was nothing Carl could do, but to become cheap.

I don't see the athletic ability in Froch that I saw in Calzaghe, but I see the same awkwardness, far more punching power, and that ability to win fights and be rough.

All in all I can see where the writers are saying that Dirrell could have done so much more to win this fight, especially this being his up and coming moment, but in the end its who landed the best punches and who did the best boxing, and because Dirrell won everytime they were boxing, and Froch barely landed anything that was considered boxing I can't give the fight to Froch.

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I agree with a lot of this post. Froch's style was part of the reason Dirrell was holding and running. He is awkward and he punches hard. It was Dirrell's fight to lose and he lost it. He should be kicking himself for it. And really as people have mentioned, he needs a new professional trainer. He has had the same trainer since his amateur days and it shows.

Froch doesn't have anything on Calzaghe. Calzaghe would tear him up. I don't see why the comparison is relevant other than that they are British and hate eachother. I geuss I see your competitiveness point - that they are both super competitive and come to win every night. But, other than that I don't think Froch is worthy of a comparison in terms of talen to Calzaghe. I don't think it would be close. Not even close. And Kessler will destroy Froch. Abraham will destroy Froch. Ward will too. Dirrell should have.