John Ryder looking to beat Canelo Alvarez in Guadalajara for one of British boxing’s best away wins | Boxing News

John Ryder is looking to accomplish one of the greatest overseas victories in British boxing history when he fights Canelo Alvarez in Guadalajara this weekend.

Mexican superstar Alvarez is returning after almost eight months out of the ring and is back home to defend his WBA, WBC, WBO and IBF super-middleweight titles against Islington’s Ryder.

An estimated 50,000 raucous Canelo supporters will pack out the Estadio Akron on Saturday night and although Ryder expects a hostile reception, he still believes he will make some fans in the process.

“I might walk to the ring to boos but I’m sure once the fight is over, I’ll leave to cheers,” Ryder told Sky Sports.

“I’m going to put it all on the line and I’m sure they’ll appreciate that.”

Throughout his long reign of dominance, Alvarez has confronted every type of opponent, losing only to two – one of those being all-time great Floyd ‘Money’ Mayweather.

Alvarez won his first world title more than 12 years ago. In all his fights since then, of all the champions, title challengers and hopeful longshots has has faced, only one of them – Shane Mosley – has had more losses on their record than Ryder.

He may not hold the power of Gennadiy Golovkin or have the Hall-of-Fame credentials of Miguel Cotto, but Ryder’s resolve has to be respected. Being written off is nothing new to ‘The Gorilla’, but he has been pursuing this fight with Alvarez.

“It felt like I was following him around the world for a couple of years during Covid, boxing on cards in and around times he was due to fight just in case anyone got taken ill,” Ryder said.

“I’ve took my knocks and I’m there now. I’m fully deserving of this shot, I’m not getting it by opportunity or by default, I have built my way back up and earned my position.

“Now I feel I really have the opportunity and we’re here for a reason.”

It has been a long road for Ryder. Billy Joe Saunders, the tricky, brash southpaw who boxed Canelo at the AT&T Stadium in 2021, is a name most Alvarez fans will know. Although Saunders, then the WBO champion, had a few moments of success, Alvarez broke him down and Saunders retired in his corner after a vicious uppercut fractured his right orbital bone.

Saunders was the first person to defeat Ryder in a professional boxing ring. Ten years ago Ryder lost a razor-thin points decision to the future two-weight champion. That was the first of many hurdles to come his way.

After winning five fights following the Saunders defeat, Ryder got a second chance at winning the coveted British middleweight title but came up short again, that time a stoppage loss at the hands of Nick Blackwell.

Four years later, after a few great victories and suffering two close-decision losses on the way, Ryder secured his first world title fight – a shot at WBA super-middleweight champion Callum Smith, in the latter’s Liverpool hometown.

Despite his valiant efforts, Ryder lost a unanimous points verdict in a contest that was tighter than the scorecards indicated.

Even after all his setbacks, Ryder has shown the resilience to come back time after time and is now a day away from the biggest fight of his career, one he has reached not by chance but by merit.

He said: “There’s been a few dark days but we always knew the sun would shine the next day and kept the faith, kept working hard and we’ve earned our shot now and we’re where we always truly believed we’d get to, so I’m thankful to myself, believing in myself and obviously the team around me for believing in me and sticking with me and just really having that bit in us to go for it.”

Ryder believes if he pulls off the upset in Alvarez’s hometown, that result will be etched in boxing history.

“It’s one of them that’ll go down in folklore, won’t it?” he said.

“The John H Stracey vs Jose Napoles or the Lloyd Honeyghan vs Donald Curry. I mean that would be up there with them for sure.”

John H Stracey, another Londoner, won the WBC welterweight title in December 1975 after recovering from a first-round knockdown against the great Jose Napoles. Cuban-born Mexican Napoles, like Alvarez, was the heavy favourite going into his title defence in Mexico.

But, as we have seen many times in boxing, some of the all-time greats can ‘become old overnight’.

Hoping for an historic night comparable to that one in 1975, Ryder may think now is the right time for him to fight Canelo.

With Alvarez suffering his first defeat in nearly a decade 12 months ago – albeit to undefeated light-heavyweight world champion Dmitry Bivol – and moving on from the loss with a not-so-spectacular performance against 40-year-old rival Golovkin, history might suggest that Ryder could cause an upset that would send shockwaves through the boxing world.

But Ryder said: “I don’t want to go in there, beat him and everyone says, ‘well, he wasn’t the Canelo of old’.

“I want him to be the best version of him.

“I want to go in there and beat the man, to be the man.”