? 34-year-old hoping for third time lucky against Sa�l Alvarez
? 'Arena with 15,000 screaming Mexicans will excite me'
A quest that began for Ryan Rhodes on a Welsh ice rink 16 years ago could end at an altitude of 5,138ft in the hostile environs of Guadalajara on Saturday. In front of 15,000 Mexicans the Sheffield man takes his third tilt at a world title when he challenges Sa�l Alvarez for the World Boxing Council's light-middleweight crown.
Rhodes is 34, and started his career by stopping Lee Crocker in two rounds at Cardiff's National Ice Rink in February 1995. His record now reads 45 wins, of which 31 were knockouts, and four losses.
The world title challenges he lost came in 1997, when Otis Grant of Canada took the World Boxing Organisation middleweight title by a unanimous decision and in 2006 when Gary Lockett of Wales was awarded the same verdict and the World Boxing Union middleweight belt.
And while Rhodes happily reminds you he is undefeated at light-middleweight Alvarez, 20, a class up from any of his previous opponents, is a virtual deity in Mexico and the bright new light of Oscar De La Hoya's Golden Boy stable.
Alvarez turned professional in 2005 aged 15 and is undefeated in 37 fights, winning his title by dismantling Matthew Hatton, Ricky's brother, in March, with all three judges awarding him the win.
Yet though Rhodes is conscious of the bear-pit he will step into at the Arena VFG, there is a breezy confidence. "It's going to be amazing ? I just hope there's a tunnel for us to get out of there safely. Walking into 15,000 screaming Mexicans booing will excite me. I think I'll knock him out. I really do. I don't want it to go the distance and leave it in the judges' hands."
Behind Rhodes, the European light-middleweight champion and rated No4 by the WBC, are the lost years when he admits to disillusionment. "There were some rough times in the middle of my career. My dad's in demolition, working with things like asbestos, and I used to help out with that. I drove a van for another friend of mine," he adds. "I got disheartened with the sport, I didn't train as hard [and] my weight blew up."
He went missing in action in 1999. After being knocked out by Jason Matthews in only the second round of a WBO interim middleweight bout he was declared "chinny", and having emerged with his friend Prince Naseem Hamed ? each trained in Brendan Ingle's Sheffield gym ? Rhodes was careworn at 22.
While Naseem was a world champion of five years and a multimillionaire Rhodes, who in 1996 became Britain's youngest post-war light-middleweight title holder, embarked on a depressing six-year sequence of six- and eight-round fights that included being knocked out by Lee Blundell in a 10-rounder during 2002.
Rhodes says: "That's when you lose heart with the game. I became a bit bored, because I wasn't fighting regularly, and when I did I was down the queue. I'd fought for a world title and now I was last [on the card] fighting a six-rounder. I thought, 'What am I getting out of it?' It was not nice at all."
From there came a long slog back to credibility. Ten subsequent wins gained Rhodes the tilt at Lockett and following that loss there were another 10 unbeaten outings which included reclaiming the British light-middleweight title in 2008, and knocking out Jamie Moore in the seventh roundto become European champion last October.
Rhodes identifies switching from Ingle to Dave Coldwell as the jolt that woke him. "I was 22 years with Brendan and it was like doing the same job, day in, day out. So I decided to split from him and it completely sparked everything again. I've been six years with Dave ? knowing what I know now, I probably should have done it two or three years before that. What, then, of the challenge of fighting at altitude? "I was out [in Mexico] just under three weeks before [the fight]. I've trained in Gran Canaria, I've trained in Cyprus, I love training in heat," Rhodes says. "Altitude is completely different to what I've trained in before but I know 100% I'll be able to cope with it."
If the auburn-haired Alvarez can somehow be defeated, Rhodes is eyeing a renaissance that would take him to the pay-per-view palaces of the US. "I want them big fights. I want the [Miguel Angel] Cotto, the [Antonio] Margarito."
It may, at last, be time for "Old Spice".
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