Ryan Rhodes retiring from boxing

By Boxing News - 09/04/2012 - Comments

Image: Ryan Rhodes retiring from boxingBy William Mackay: 35-year-old former British light middleweight champion Ryan Rhodes (46-6, 31 KO’s) is reportedly retiring from boxing after having thought long and hard about whether he should continue on with the sport. Rhodes has lost two out of his last three fights with both losses coming by knockout against Saul Alvarez and Sergiy Rabchenko.

Rhodes said to Sky Sports News “It’s the right time to bow out of boxing.”

Rhodes figures it would take him a year and half just to get a shot at a European title, and he would be almost 38. At this point it’s questionable whether Rhodes can even win at the British level, let alone the European level. It wasn’t a good sign seeing Rabchenko chop Rhodes down. Had that fight taken place a year earlier, before Rhodes’ lost to Saul Alvarez, I’d have favored Rhodes to beat Rabchenko. However, Rhodes took a lot of punishment in the Alvarez fight and it probably didn’t help him much with his self confidence losing that fight.

The high points of Rhodes’ 17-year pro career was picking up the British 154 pound title in 1996, beating Gary Woolcombe to recapture it in 2008 and stopping Jamie Moore in 2009.

Things were going well for Rhodes up until facing the hard-hitting 22-year-old WBC light middleweight champion Alvarez last year in June. Rhodes simply didn’t have the power to compete with Alvarez and ended up just soaking up punishment for 11 rounds until being stopped in the 12th when Alvarez flurried on him.

Rhodes rebounded from that loss to defeat little known Siarhei Khomitski by an eight round decision last November. However, things once again turned sour for Rhodes when he was stopped by the 26-year-old Rabchenko in a fight for the vacant European Boxing Union (EBU) light middleweight title last June in a 7th round stoppage loss.



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