English junior middleweight standout Ryan Rhodes has announced his retirement, conceding that with his 36^th birthday fast approaching ‘the time is right.’

The gritty, powerful Yorkshireman finishes with impressive career stats of 46 wins, 31 inside the distance and six losses. A former European and British titleholder, Rhodes’ most notable night probably came 15 months ago in Mexico when he suffered a final-round KO against WBC junior middleweight titleholder Saul Alvarez.

“I’ll be 36 in a couple of months and it’s going to take me 18 months to get up to a European title level,” said the Sheffield southpaw, who in June was stopped in the seventh round by unbeaten Belarusian Sergey Rabchenko in what has proved to be his final outing. “I think it’s just the right time to bow out now. I’ve got all my faculties intact and I think I’ve enjoyed a terrific career.

“I considered going on but I have to think about a lot of things. My daughters are 13 and 10 now and it’s heartbreaking for me to see them upset after a fight hasn’t gone my way.

“I compared the positives to the negatives and the negatives outweighed the positives.”