Ryan Rhodes (born 20 November 1976) is a British former

professional boxer Professional boxing, or prizefighting, is regulated, sanctioned boxing. Professional boxing bouts are fought for a purse that is divided between the boxers as determined by contract. Most professional bouts are supervised by a regulatory autho ...

who competed from 1995 to 2012. He held the

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super welterweight Light middleweight, also known as junior middleweight or super welterweight,PeBoxRec/ref> is a weight class in combat sports. Boxing The light middleweight division (also known as junior middleweight in the IBF or super welterweight in the WBA an ...

title twice, from 1996 to 1997 and in 2008, and the EBU European super welterweight title from 2009 to 2010. Additionally he challenged for the WBO middleweight title in 1997, and the WBC super welterweight title in 2011.

Professional career

Rhodes took up boxing at a young age, training at Brendan Ingle's gym in the

Wincobank Shiregreen and Brightside ward—which includes the districts of Brightside, Shiregreen, and Wincobank—is one of the 28 electoral wards in City of Sheffield, England. It is located in the northern part of the city and covers an area ...

district of Sheffield. At the age of 20, he defeated another Sheffield boxer Paul "Silky" Jones with a technical knock out in the eighth round to become the youngest post-war holder of the

title. He went on to win the belt outright in a record time of 90 days with wins over Peter Waudby and Del Bryan. On 13 December 1997, Rhodes stepped up a weight division to middleweight to challenge the Canadian

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for the vacant WBO title but was defeated by a unanimous decision. On 18 April 2008, Rhodes knocked out Gary Woolcombe 37 seconds into the 9th round to regain the British light middleweight title, 11 years after he first won it. He defended his title for the first time as the main event on the Hayemaker Promotions boxing show in Sheffield. His opponent was Jamie Coyle, whom he defeated by a unanimous decision. Since then he has defeated Vincent Vuma of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

to win the WBC International light middleweight title and in doing so obtained a ranking in the top ten in the world. Rhodes was due to defend his British light middleweight title against the Londoner

Anthony Small Anthony Small (also known as Abdul Haq) is a retired professional boxer and Islamic political activist who was born 20 June 1981 in Lewisham, London, England. He held both the British and Commonwealth belts at light middleweight. His was also r ...

at the Echo Arena in

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...

on 28 March 2008, but withdrew because of an illness during his training camp. He defeated Jamie Moore in the seventh round of their European title fight on 23 October 2009. He defended the title again on 21 May 2010 at home against the Italian Luca Messi, with a technical knock out in the sixth round. Rhodes lost his WBC light middleweight challenge bout against

Canelo Álvarez Santos Saúl "Canelo" Álvarez Barragán (; born 18 July 1990) is a Mexican professional boxer. He has won multiple world championships in four weight classes from light middleweight to light heavyweight, including unified titles in three of ...

with a technical knockout in the twelfth round on 18 June 2011 in Guadalajara,

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

. Rhodes announced his retirement from professional boxing on 4 September 2012.

Professional boxing record

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Rhodes, Ryan 1976 births Living people Sportspeople from Sheffield English male boxers European Boxing Union champions Light-middleweight boxers Middleweight boxers Southpaw boxers British Boxing Board of Control champions