John Ryder on His Froch-Bute Undercard Showcase on Sky

By Shaun Brown

The career exposure for John Ryder moves to another level on May 26 when he fights Luke Robinson on the undercard of Carl Froch vs Lucian Bute in Nottingham.

After notching up his 10th professional win last month, the London middleweight is looking forward to another taste of the big time. For now though he continues to soak up every part of the process and hopes that one day he, like Froch, will be headlining a show of his own in front of local support.

“I’ve not really thought about the exposure to be honest,” said Ryder when speaking to BoxingScene.com. “It’s always nice to get on Sky (Television) and the fact it’s going out to so many countries gives me a bigger incentive to put on a good performance.”

Last time out the 23-year-old was taken the distance against the useful Alistair Warren. Not since April 2011 and his fifth professional contest had Ryder had to wait for the referee to add up his scorecard and raise his arm in victory.

Currently in the category of “prospect”, both Ryder and his promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Promotions are fully aware that this is a work in progress operation and the need to be fast tracked is unnecessary at this stage.

“That fight was a step back down to reality,” said Hearn when summing up the bout. “That was a good learning fight for him, he hurt his hand and got involved in an inside fight. When he fights on the outside and moves side to side he’s really good, he needs to do that a bit more. “The fight on May 26 against Luke Robinson is another tough fight, but if John Ryder is what we think he is then he needs to be dealing with these kinds of fighters.”

Ryder agrees that his last showing wasn’t his best but he was more than happy at getting the rounds in, putting some miles on the clock and realising that not every opponent needs to be blasted out as quickly as possible.

“There was a lot of smoke blown my way after my first couple of stoppages,” revealed Ryder.
“So maybe because of that I’ve been a trying to hard to knock my opponents out and get myself an early night which I don’t actually need. Getting the rounds in gives you that bit extra confidence and to be honest I was chuffed to get them in. Now I’ve got another eight rounder coming up in Nottingham but I feel as though I’m fit enough to go the 12 rounds.”

His confidence in believing he could go the full professional distance does not mean he’ll be calling out other up and coming rivals or banging on the door of Hearn demanding he gets him pushed up the pecking order. However, in that statement there was a signal of intent that despite still being a baby in this game, and having so much to learn, a twelve round engine is already in the bag and it won’t be long before we see it put to use.

The possibility of fighting again, on another big Matchroom show, in September and in London could see Ryder fighting for the Southern Area title. A belt recently held by Billy Joe Saunders.

Saunders currently has a two fight, two win advantage over Ryder. And while Hearn acknowledges that his man, for the time being, will remain behind in the race to titles, a fight between the two Londoners is an integral part of the bigger picture.

“It’s the obvious fight to make,” Hearn declared. “You’d have two Londoners in a big, big fight and hopefully it’ll be for a big title.”

“It’s good to have a rivalry,” added Ryder. “There are a lot of them in the sport. I don’t just think it would be a rivalry between me and Billy, either. There would be one between the two promoters as well. I’d be looking to get one over Billy in London and Eddie would be looking to get one over Frank Warren [Billy Joe Saunders's promoter] as well.”

Twitter @shaun_brown