By Ashley King: Hello Boxing fans, this is my first Article so please go easy on the criticism! I’ve wanted to write an article for a while now, and now I feel this is a good opportunity to express myself. Last night Ryan Rhodes defeated Luca Messi in the 6th round defended his European Light Middleweight title for the first time which he won against Jamie Moore last year in sensational fashion.

Although Messi was the older man at 35, and was being billed as experienced veteran by the commentators his career was only 12 years to Rhodes 15, and had 44 bouts to Rhodes 47 coming in.

Messi’s career seems to live by the fact that he’s a good country level fighter, but as soon as he steps it up to European and even when he challenged for the world title he always comes up short and last night was no different. For what its worth he was on a six win streak, but every single one was against men who has more losses than wins, his last win being in November against a fighter with a record of 1-13-1 and still went the 6 round distance.

Rhodes Career started off brilliantly with him being one of the youngest ever British title holders, but then seemed to lull, and every time he took big fights on he seemed to be always coming up short – much like Messi. But from 2008 onwards he started his run for the European belt and has looked good in doing so , defeated Jamie Moore last year coming in as an underdog. Nothing here indicated Messi could trouble him, and that was evident in the fight.

In the first round Rhodes was moving around well, fighting orthodox then switching back into his southpaw stance, and using his left hand very well. Messi does little else except try to bob and weave, barely throwing anything. Messi corners Rhodes but comes a little square on and is caught off balance with a good left hand that puts him down, though unhurt.

Rhodes did much the same in the second, unloading quite often without anything coming back his way and it had been obvious from the first bell that Messi had little if any chance of pulling an upset.

In the first Rhodes seemed to be acting a little bit lazy and letting Messi unload a little on the ropes, though not much landed and Messi was still being out worked on the outside. Messi came in again when Rhodes was on the ropes and ate another left hand that put him down cleanly this time. Rhodes chased him for the rest of the round and Messi even indicated for Rhodes to unload, which he did but the challenger was ok for the rest of the round.

Rounds 4 – 5 seemed the same but Messi should be given respect that he never stopped trying, in fact trying more these rounds but still coming up short. I felt Rhodes could of done a lot more in these rounds and seemed a little bit lazy, but he was still landing and landing effectively, his left hand works a dream for him.

In round 6 Rhodes picked the pace up and instead of moving around Luca who had fought mostly in the centre of the ring, Rhodes pushed him right back to the ropes, hit him with a great left to the head which hurt Messi then caught him with a great body shot that moved Messi, who tried to stay up but took a knee before taking an onslaught of punishment. He raised again at 8 but the end was clearly here and Messi was looking at his corner who should of ended it there, but instead Messi took some hard unnessary shots against the ropes before it being stopped at 1:09 of the 6th.

It was a good performance by Rhodes, and although (in my opinion) he could of had Messi out of there earlier, he boxed well and didn’t take many shots, always a good sign in a fighter who may start declining any time. At 33 Rhodes doesn’t have much time left before he has to go for the world scene, but he’s made all the right moves so far in going in that direction.

Im not sure what to think of Rhodes going to the world level, he’s looking extremely confident in a spectacular way, and you’d think he’d be easily blowing them all out of the water by the way he talks and acts, but in his last two bouts he has looked average in bits, and Moore’s early attacks really had me doubting his ability at world level. He seems to improve with every fight but soon that’s going to stop and you have to wonder if his ability he already has is good enough to tangle with the best in the division.

He boxes well going backwards but does take rest’s against the ropes which he cant afford to do, Cotto and Paul Williams love for fighters to try and sit back so they can unload which Ryan would not be able to do in a fight against either of those guys. I think now Ryan Rhodes has to think carefully to who he fights, and dip his toe in the water at world level before jumping in head first.

Looking at current top 20-25 in the division, I think Rhodes could beat most of them, but then there are some question marks for me in the top 5 or top 10. I think a good move for Rhodes would be maybe Daniel Santos who is coming off a loss to Yuri Foreman who fights Cotto very soon. If Rhodes can look good against him then I think he does have a chance at world level. He is a likable guy and I would love to see him win a world title before he retires, he just has to watch out.

Okay guys, i hope you enjoyed my first article, please give me positive and negative feedback on how i can improve my writing. I try to be unbiased as I can in my articles, but if you spot flaws please tell me. Thank you for reading.