The Sheffield boxer has had two stabs at a world title either side of a mid-career dip, but is confident of pulling off a shock against Mexico's Sa�l Alvarez
A quest that began for Ryan Rhodes on a Welsh ice rink 16 years ago could finally end at 5,138 feet in the hostile environs of Guadalajara on Saturday. In front of 15,000 Mexicans the Sheffield boxer takes his third tilt at a world title by fighting Sa�l Alvarez for the 20-year-old's WBC light-middleweight crown.
Rhodes is 34, and commenced his record of four losses and 45 wins, of which 31 are KOs, by stopping Lee Crocker after two rounds at Cardiff's National Ice Rink in February 1995. Twice before "Spice Boy" has fought for, and lost, a world belt. In 1997, when Otis Grant claimed the WBO middleweight title by a unanimous decision, and in 2006, when Gary Lockett was awarded the same verdict and the WBU middleweight belt.
While Rhodes happily reminds you he is undefeated at light-middleweight, Alvarez is a class up from any previous opponent, revered like a deity in his homeland, he is the bright new star in Oscar De La Hoya's Golden Boy stable.
After turning professional in 2005 aged 15 Alvarez is undefeated in 37 fights, and at 20 won his world crown by dismantling Matthew Hatton, Ricky's brother, over 12 rounds in Anaheim in March, with all three judges awarding him the win.
Yet though Rhodes is conscious of the bear pit he steps into at the Arena VFG next weekend, there is a breezy confidence regarding what would be a famous victory. "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," he says. "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, who is the European light-middleweight champion and rated No4 by the WBC, are the lost years when he admits to disillusion with the fight game and having to find alternative work. "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," he says. "I got disheartened with the sport, I didn't train as hard [and] my weight blew up."
Rhodes went missing in action in 1999. After being knocked out by Jason Matthews in the second round of a WBO interim middleweight bout, the cognescenti declared him chinny, and having come up 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 was already 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 was only broken by Lee Blundell's knockout of him in a 10-rounder in 2002.
"That's when you lose heart with the game," Rhodes said. "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. After the Blundell defeat, 10 wins gained Rhodes a second tilt at a world crown, against Lockett. Following that loss there were 10 unbeaten outings, which included him reclaiming his British light-middleweight title in 2008 and knocking out Jamie Moore in the seventh round to become European champion last October.
Rhodes identifies switching from Ingle to a new trainer, 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 Brendan 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'm 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 said. "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 turned over, Rhodes is eyeing a late-career renaissance that will take him to the pay-per-view palaces of America, "I want them big fights. I want the [Miguel Angel] Cotto, the [Antonio] Margarito," he said. It might, at last, be time for "Old Spice".
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