Anthony Dirrell takes technical decision over Avni Yildirim, wins WBC title

Anthony Dirrell (33-1-1, 24 KOs) took home the WBC’s vacant super middleweight title tonight on FS1, outpointing Avni Yildirim (21-2, 12 KOs) over 10 rounds to take a technical split decision on a fight that was stopped short.

Dirrell suffered a cut over his left eye in Round 7, ruled as the result of an accidental head clash, and over the next two-and-a-half rounds that cut would get significantly worse, with a ringside doctor eventually stepping in to stop the fight about halfway through round 10.

Once the fight was waved off, Yildirim leaped onto the ropes thinking he won by TKO, only to find out that they called it to the scorecards. At the the time of the stoppage two official judges had Dirrell up 96-94, with one judge having it 98-92 for Yildirim. BLH had Dirrell up at the time of stoppage 96-94.

Finaly CompuBox stats had Dirrell landing 317 of 864 total punches (36.7%) with Yildirim landing 240 of 692 total punches (34.7%), and with the win Dirrell said he would be looking to unify titles, mentioning Caleb Plant as a target.

In the co-feature bout, featuring hometown favorite Jamal James (25-1, 12 KOs) went up against Colombia’s Janer Gonzalez (19-2-1, 15 KOs) in a 10-round welterweight bout. James made good use of his height advantage and used a pretty effective jab to keep Gonzalez on the outside. Gonzalez was sort of a tricky fighter with an awkward style, but James was able to break him down by the mid-rounds, putting him down hard with a body shot in the 6th round.

Gonzalez would just barely beat the count and would be saved by the bell before James could follow it up, but Gonzalez still decided to call it a day between rounds resulting in a TKO win for James. James would land a total of 112 of 447 total punches (25.1%) with Gonzalez landing 70 of 193 total punches (25.1%) by CompuBox count.

Finally, in the broadcast’s opening fight, middleweights Marcos Henandez (13-2-1, 3 KOs) and Jeison Rosario (18-1-1, 13 KOs) went head to head. It was a well and hard fought battle, but Rosario eventually broke Hernandez down in the second half of the fight, with Hernandez’s stamina clearly fading pretty quickly.

As Rosario started coming on strong by Round 5, things didn’t get any better for Hernandez, and Rosario would land a clean left hook in Round 9 that would put a bloody Hernandez down. Hernandez would beat the count but take a follow up assault that forced the referee to step in and stop the fight at 2:45 of Round 9. CompuBox stats had Rosario landing 202 of 653 total punches (30.9%) with Hernandez landing 166 of 640 total punches (25.9%).