Jack edges majority decision over Mikaelyan, keeps WBC belt

Badou Jack kept the WBC cruiserweight title by beating Noel Mikaelyan.

Badou Jack nicked a tight decision over Noel Mikaelyan, cementing his status as the WBC cruiserweight champion.

Jack won a majority decision on scores of 114-114, 115-113, and 115-113. Bad Left Hook’s two unofficial score cards both favored Mikaelyan at 115-113, but this was a fight that reasonably could have gone either way on that score or been a draw, and the judges did fine work on this one.

Jack (29-3-3, 17 K) was fighting for the first time since winning the WBC title in February 2023, and Mikaelyan (27-3, 12 KO) for the first time since winning the same, then-vacated WBC title in November 2023. Various fights for both fell through in the interim, and this was not the originally scheduled fight tonight, but we got a good, competitive, smart bit of boxing from these two veterans.

We saw both fighters make adjustments, get second winds, and compete at a high level with toughness and veteran savvy. You really couldn’t ask much more from two fighters who had been stuck on the sidelines so long.