Jamal James used his boxing ability on the outside to pick Thomas Dulorme apart and showed the willingness to fight in close quarters at times as well.
The performance was more than enough for James to cruise to a unanimous decision and capture the WBA interim welterweight title at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on Saturday night. Judges scored it 115-113, 116-112 and 117-111 in the headliner to the return of PBC Fight Night.
The turning point of the bout came in the sixth round, when James decided to briefly abandon his smooth outpointing by fighting on the inside, as he landed roughly a dozen unanswered punches in one sequence.
Taking that round, James bounced back to the outside and resumed peppering Dulorme with stiff right hands, as he upped the volume and made it look easy pulling away for the one-sided victory. By the time the final bell tolled, James had run up his punch count to 204 blows in comparison to Dulorme's 115 in this one-way boxing lesson.
Just like that, James puts himself in the conversation with fellow welterweight champions Errol Spence Jr., Terence Crawford and Manny Pacquiao. Standing a rangy 6-foot-2, James (27-1, 12 KOs) getting more power to his punch would seemingly make him that much more of a threat moving forward.
Co-main event: David Morrell Jr. soundly defeats Lennox Allen to take WBA interim super middleweight title
Morrell controlled the pace and punch volume in thoroughly dominating Allen via unanimous decision to become a world champion in just his third pro fight. Morrell (3-0, 2 KOs) also handed Allen (22-1-1, 14 KOs) his first pro loss in the process.