As some of you know, Dan Rafael gave the Dirrell-Froch fight to Froch for his "physical" and "relentless" style.  He even mentioned in the recap that Dirrell was the one trying to wrestle:

He ran, he cried to the referee about just about everything and he held. And grabbed. And wrestled.

What the hell? Seriously? What's with the subjectivity? Why doesn't Dan mention the cheap shots and tricks that Froch did?

I always thought Dan was pretty good at judging matches (much better than Kieran), so I couldn't figure out why he saw Froch as the winner of more rounds.  I checked on the comments for his recap, and in all of the pro-Dirrell posts, I found the answer I was looking for.  Dan is just a shill for Showtime!  It did not matter who won to him, he just has to justify the victor.  I think this explains a lot, and why when Dan is questioned about his decision, he can only respond with childish responses ("You go rewatch it" "If, if, if... Whatever." "I didn't care who won").  Actually, that third response backs up the shill theory.

 

Here's the comment that showed me the light, from user akfak_retlaw:

I really wish this was on HBO and they had CompUBox. You shouldn't judge a fight just on the punch stats, but if this fight had it you would easily see how full of $hhitt Dan is. He is clearly just being the mouth piece for the tournament and lost any kind of objectivity. Showtime put him in their little build up program and he's not going to say anything negative about the tournament. This was a garbage hometown decision and Dan's analysis of the fight is so off base that there can be no other explanation other than him wanting the tournament to look good. What a joke!