Jazza Dickens wrote his name into the Merseyside boxing history books after claiming the IBO world featherweight title with a win over Lerato Dlamini.
Dickens has twice failed in his attempts to win world titles, but it was third time lucky for the popular 31-year-old, who was awarded the win on all three of the judges’ scorecards.
In front of a packed out Eventim Olympia, Dickens came through 12 tough rounds of boxing against South African Dlamini, who certainly proved to be no pushover.
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After an open four rounds, in which both fighters traded blows, Dickens got on top in the second half of the fight and appeared to hurt Dlamini on a number of occasions between rounds six and nine.
But despite looking as though he was on his way out in the ninth, Dlamini, to his credit, rallied and came back in the 10th and pushed Dickens all the way.
And after 36 minutes of boxing, the fight went to the judges scorecards and all three scored in favour of Dickens. 115-113, 115-113 and 116-112 were the official scores.
“I have been working for this for 18 long hard years," an emotional Dickens said in the immediate aftermath to the fight. "But I did it with my fans, we did it together. Tonight, I am going to celebrate with everyone in Liverpool.”
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