Badou Jack and Lucian Bute fought to a majority draw on Saturday in Washington, D.C., which allowed Jack to retain his WBC 168-pound title.

The result sets up a title-unification fight between Jack and IBF beltholder James DeGale for later this year. DeGale outpointed surprisingly difficult Rogelio Median earlier on the D.C. card.

Jack (20-1-2, 12 knockouts) thoroughly outboxed Bute for most of the bout, fighting intelligently and with discipline. Jack landed consistently to Bute’s head and body while maintaining a tight defense, which Bute had a difficult time penetrating.

Jack landed a stunning 61 percent of his power shots, according to computer stats, an indication of how effective the titleholder was. Jack connected on 278 of 703 punches overall, Bute 179 of 857. Jack also outlanded Bute to the body 107-23.

Bute (32-3-1, 25 KOs) rallied late in the fight, when Jack seemed to tire, but it seemed to be too late for the former IBF super middleweight titleholder to dig himself out of a deep hole.

Two of the judges didn’t see it that way. Stephen Rados had it 117-111, which reflected what happened in the ring. However, Glen Crocker and Omar Mintun Sr. scored it 114-114, making it a majority draw.

A full report will follow shortly.