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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.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ronnie Nathanielsz.
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