Rob Norton retained his British and Commonwealth cruiserweight titles after drawing his re-match with David Dolan in Altrincham.
Dolan denied by judges in scrappy cruiserweight title fight
Rob Norton retained his British and Commonwealth cruiserweight titles after drawing his re-match with David Dolan in Altrincham.
Norton had beaten the Sunderland boxer in a dramatic fight 11 months ago but the second installment was poor by comparison with the bad blood between the pair turning it into a scrap.
Norton was happy to allow his younger opponent to dictate the pace as Dolan embarked upon his surprising tactic of lunging in with a right-hand lead to counter Norton's awkward southpaw stance.
It rarely paid off though as Norton used all his experience to escape the heaviest of the blows, and it was soon apparent the 37-year-old was saving himself for a strong finish.
Dolan, who enjoyed such a promising amateur career, allowed the needle to cloud his judgement as his usually clinical jab was curiously neglected.
Pot shots
It was difficult to split the pair on the scorecards at halfway with Dolan occasionally scoring with his right hand pot shots while Norton enjoyed plenty of success with the left-hand counter.
However, if the veteran was expecting his younger opponent to fade in the later rounds he was mistaken, and as Dolan continued to pour forward it was Norton who was drained of energy entering the final quarter.
He had little left to offer other than a scything left hand counter but Dolan continued to wade forward and, as the aggressor throughout, he may have expected to take the titles.
However, he went home empty-handed after the judges returned scores of 115-114 (Nolan), 113-116 (Norton) and 114-114, a result that was greeted by near silence from the crowd.
"It seemed a very hard scrap and some of the rounds could have gone either way," Norton told
Sky Sports. "He won some clearly, I thought I won some clearly.
"When you've got to take it from the champion I think you've got to rip it away, I think it was a close enough fight to give it to me."
Dolan countered: "I tried to knock the stuffing out of him and wear him down, but as the aggressor I thought I might have got the verdict.
"I tired in the last round but I wasn't scoring the fight."
