\n<\/p>\n
Former world cruiserweight champion Chris Billam-Smith will headline Zuffa Boxing’s first show in the UK. <\/b><\/p>\n
‘The Gentleman’ will face Canadian Ryan Rozicki at the Bournemouth International Centre (BIC) on 6 June. <\/p>\n
This will be Billam-Smith’s first bout in more than a year since he beat American Brandon Glanton at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. <\/p>\n
The 35-year-old from Dorset has previously fought at the BIC on three occasions and won a world title at Bournemouth’s Vitality Stadium in 2023.<\/p>\n
Billam-Smith signed a multi-fight deal with Dana White’s Zuffa Boxing earlier this month after previously being promoted by Ben Shalom’s Boxxer. <\/p>\n
“I’m so happy, not only to be back boxing after over a year, but to be back home,” Billam-Smith told BBC Sport. <\/p>\n
“It’s Zuffa’s first show in the UK and it’s going to be nice to set the standard for UK shows and show them what the atmosphere is like down here. <\/p>\n
“They’ll be astounded by the amount of noise that arena can make. I got into the sport because of the atmosphere and to be the man in the arena in that noise is such an honour and I’m so grateful to my supporters.”<\/p>\n
Zuffa has previously held events in the United States and this will be their seventh show since launching their first in January. <\/p>\n
The promotional company also have on their books cruiserweight star Jai Opetaia, someone Billam-Smith said he would be keen to fight in the near future. <\/p>\n
Rozicki has 21 wins to his name, with 20 of them by knockout, with just one defeat and one draw on his record. <\/p>\n
He has previously fought for the WBC interim cruiserweight title and this will be his first fight outside of Canada.<\/p>\n
“He’s a dangerous fighter and I’ve known about him for a few years,” Billam-Smith added. <\/p>\n
“His record speaks for itself; he’s a huge and dangerous puncher with power in both hands, he’s an unknown quantity too and this is a dangerous fight. <\/p>\n
“But these are the fights I want now and have to get up for at this stage in my career. I have to be switched on 100%.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Former world cruiserweight champion Chris Billam-Smith will headline Zuffa Boxing’s first show in the UK. ‘The Gentleman’ will face Canadian Ryan Rozicki at the Bournemouth International Centre (BIC) on 6 June. This will be Billam-Smith’s first bout in more than a year since he beat American Brandon Glanton at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The 35-year-old<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14241,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-boxing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}