I watched it again with my parents the day after on DVR and something my father said stuck out to me. Dirrell didn’t want to fight. He should have planted his feet at some point and just thrown down. If he wants to be elusive and be more impressive, he needs to do more bobbing and weaving and less ducking and dodging. And a whole hell of alot less running.

A PRIDE style yellow card would have fixed the problem, I think…

I guess I should read what I post closely before doing so because my position on the fight isn’t clear from what I wrote…

I gave the fight to Dirrell while watching it. I was outraged when the decision was read and thought he was robbed.

The second time I watched it, I still gave it to Dirrell (which is what I left out of my original post). What changed, however, was after having a discussion with my father, I could see why people would would give the fight to Froch.

Froch was pressing the fight, and that probably won him rounds on the scorecards (and in people’s minds) when Dirrell was excessively clinching. The worst part about the clinching was that Dirrell was never dazed; many times he pre-empitvely would initiate a clinch to keep from getting hit. It looked like Dirrell thought he would get knocked out/down or hurt if he exchanged with Froch.

I think it was justified to deduct a point for clinching. However, at least 2 points should have been taken from Froch for rabbit punches and dirty fighting as well. I think that the deducted point really pissed Dirrell off to the point that he really began to unload offensively.