It had been a long four years for Anthony Dirrell, but after everything he’s endured outside of the ring, the Flint, Michigan, native can finally call himself world champion again.
Dirrell (33-1-1, 24 KOs) outslugged Turkey’s Avni Yildirim (21-2, 12 KOs) in a hard-fought scrap for nearly 10 rounds in the main event of a Premier Boxing Champions card on FS1 Saturday night to win the WBC super middleweight title. The two combatants fought in a virtual phone booth for the vast majority of the contest, both landing clean punches to the head and body in scattered bursts of action inside the Minneapolis Armory in Minneapolis.