SIOUX FALLS, SD — The honor of being crowned a world champion is still sinking in for a professional boxer from South Dakota.
Josh “D-Day” Dyer won the light-heavyweight title of the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship last weekend in Salt Lake City, Utah.
“To see the dream finally come true, it feels like I’m still sleeping. I’m like waiting to wake up and be like, oh — psych,” Dyer said.
Dyer scored a technical knockout over defending champion Mike “The Marine” Richman to claim the light-heavyweight title. Dyer says he was relieved when a doctor stepped in and put an end to the fight.
“Because my hands were hurting! I had been smashing him for a solid four rounds. He had the world’s best poker face. I couldn’t tell if I was hurting him, or not,” Dyer said.
Because the fight was in Salt Lake City, Dyer’s training team wanted to build up his endurance to deal with the higher elevation.
“When we were about six weeks out, I started to have a pretty good feeling because he was responding a lot better to the workouts. Usually, it’s kind of a trouble getting him here. But he was show up a lot and working really hard,” Dyer’s strength & conditioning coach Austin Pederson said.
The Sioux Falls boxing community is beaming as brightly as Josh Dyer’s shiny championship belt.
Dyers says he’s been taken aback by the attention he’s received since winning the world title.
“I can’t even really go on a walk now without people running up and they’re just like, ‘hey, good job, champ! Good job!’ Going through the airport, we probably had 100 people stop me and ask for autographs and interviews,” Dyer said.
Dyer is still healing from the fight, including dealing with a split-open knuckle. He plans to return to the gym next week to begin training again. He expects a return to the ring to defend his title before the end of the year. But until then, he and his team will enjoy the accomplishment of bringing a world title home to South Dakota.
“I did it. We did it. We’re world champions now,” Dyer said.
Dyer earned $20.000 for the win. It’s the biggest payout of his professional career.
