Andre Dirrell led off the special edition of ESPN Friday Night Fights live from Biloxi Mississippi. Dirrell took on Nick Brinson in a 10 round middleweight bout. Dirrell started off at a relatively slow pace feeling out Brinson early. Late in the 4th round Dirrell landed a tremendous left hand that severely staggered Brinson. Dirrell quickly jumped on Brinson firing off combinations before the referee stepped in and called a halt to the bout. Dirrell improves to 23-1(16).
In the main event of the evening Jermain “Bad Intentions” Taylor challenged Sam “King” Soliman for Soliman’s IBF Middleweight Championship.
Early in the fight the action was very sloppy as Soliman was darting in and doing a lot of clinching. The early rounds were extremely hard to score with neither man landing anything of note.
The 5th round is where the fight started to change Taylor began to jab effectively and was able to land his right hand behind the jab. The 6th round was much of the same with Taylor being able to land his right hand very effectively as his right hand began to be the story of the fight.
Round 7 saw Taylor drop Soliman with a jab at this point there seemed to be some sort of injury to Soliman’s left leg or ankle.
Round 8 was more of the same. The injured Soliman had no answer for Taylor’s right hand and Soliman was again dropped by a Taylor right hand.
The next 4 rounds were one sided in favor of Taylor scoring knockdowns in the 9th and the 11th. The fight went to the judges scored cards. All 3 judges scored the fight in favor of Taylor by the scores of 116-111,115-109, and 116-109.
Jermain Taylor becomes the new IBF Middleweight Champion.
