What a night it was at the Barclays Center.
IBF super middleweight champion James DeGale (23-1-1, 14 KO’s) and WBC super middleweight champion Badou Jack (20-1-3, 12 KO’s) slugged it out in a terrific fight that ended in a draw. This is a fight that featured multiple momentum swings and each fighter hit the canvas in the bout. There are arguments for both fighters winning, but the judges scored it 114-112 for DeGale, 113-113, and 113-113, making it a majority draw. Def Pen scored the fight 114-112 for DeGale. Both fighters retained their world titles in this unification bout.
DeGale, 30, got off to a blazing start, dropping Jack in the very first round on a left-hand shot that knocked him off balance. He continued his success through the early rounds, using his speed, slickness, and combination punching to frustrate the slower Jack.
Jack, 33, began to turn the tide in the late fourth-early fifth round. He applied great pressure and was constantly moving forward, landing hard shots. Jack, the Swedish native fighting out of Las Vegas, appeared to be the bigger man and imposed his physical strength on his opponent.
In the second half of the fight, this was an amazing back-and-forth affair. Both fighters had their moments and exchanged rounds. On the Def Pen scorecard, DeGale, a 2008 Olympic gold medalist from Great Britain, claimed rounds 7 and 11 in the second half of the fight. While Jack came on strong to win rounds 8, 9, 10, and 12.
The 12th and final round provided plenty of drama to the end of this bout. Jack hurt DeGale badly, sending him to the canvas for the first time in his professional career. DeGale was able to get up, with his right eye badly damaged, and survive the round as Jack landed big shots. DeGale, though, did close the round well by landing two big shots right before the final bell.
Both fighters had great moments in this fight. Jack appeared to be outclassed by DeGale’s speed and skill early, but imposed himself in a big way down the stretch, knocking out DeGale’s mouthpiece on multiple occasions and appeared to damage his teeth. Jack was more active, landing 231 of 745 punches to DeGale’s 172 of 617.
Those numbers may be deceiving, in favor of Jack. But he out landed DeGale in a big way in rounds 8 and 12, skewing those final tallies. This was a terrific fight, and a rematch would make sense. But Floyd Mayweather, Jack’s promoter, shot down those ideas, stating that Jack needs to move up to the 175-pound division due to a struggle to make the super middleweight limit of 168.
In the co-feature, another one of Mayweather’s fighters put on a show. 22-year-old Gervonta “Tank” Davis (17-0, 16 KO’s), of Baltimore, knocked out defending IBF junior lightweight champion Jose Pedraza (22-1, 12 KO’s) in the seventh round of their fight.
Davis looked terrific in this fight, displaying a terrific mix of speed and power in both hands. He landed huge shots on Pedraza without much trouble in this bout, winning most of the rounds. This was a star-making performance for Davis, who had a large contingent of supporters in the crowd for this bout. There is a bright future for him.
This was a terrific night of boxing in Brooklyn. We saw the emergence of a young star and a war between two of the best fighters in their respective division. Here’s to hoping we will get to see the rematch.
