Niagara boxing legend Ryan Ranelli
Ryan Ranelli took up boxing when he was 11 years old and the 38-year-old Hamilton resident is still going strong.
“I am just too stupid to quit,” the recent inductee into the Niagara Boxing Legends said with a laugh. “I’ve had lows, trust me. I’ve had multiple losses in a row but I had to overcome myself and just keep going.”
The Sudbury native had a long layoff after injuring his neck in 2013 before returning to the sport in 2017. He had two fights that year and another in 2018 and then his work as a personal trainer and the COVID pandemic shut down his boxing activities again. The McGrory’s Boxing Club member turned pro in March of this year and has compiled a pro record of 2-0 with a pair of knockouts. His next fight will be this August in Colombia.
“I don’t have anything to prove to anybody else but I feel that I have more in me to give. I think I can get another Canadian championship or maybe even more. I would like to fight for a title and realistically speaking I have about four years left,” he said. “I would love to end on a high note.”
Clearly, boxing is a love and a passion.
“Boxing is life and I have heard it from everyone who has ever played other sports when they come to boxing. They are like ‘It is unlike any other sport and it is more like life.’ I have trained high level basketball and hockey players and there are life lessons to be learned in those sports, of course. But boxing seems to be the only sport that is directly correlated to life,” the personal trainer said. “The stronger you are in boxing and the more you master yourself, the better you can master your life. Boxing is a microcosm of life and I am always trying to improve myself.”
That theme has been a recurring one throughout his boxing career.
“I was always trying get better and that has never really stopped.”
Ranelli started boxing when he was 11 and had his first fight when he was 12.
Boxing was never easy.
“I wasn’t very good at boxing. I kept freezing up in sparring and it was something that I felt I needed to overcome. I refused to quit until I could conquer myself.”
He got better and better at it but it never totally went away.
“You get better at it and then sometimes you fall into old, bad habits. Old habits die hard and it happened a lot less the older I got. It took me until my late teens until I started to feel comfortable and in control of myself to a certain extent.”
He ended up winning four Ontario titles, three at the senior level, and was a two-time Canadian senior champion at 51 kilograms in 2006 and 2007.
He represented Canada at a number of international events but his career highlight was capturing the senior national amateur championship in 2006 in St. Catharines.
“It was my first time going to nationals and my first time winning them and they gave out belts that year. I ended up winning a belt with the Canadian championship engraved on it.”
Ranelli was thrilled to be inducted into the Niagara Boxing Legends.
“I was very flattered and honoured. Joe (Corrigan) has been a great guy to boxing in general and to everyone in boxing,” he said. “It was a nice surprise.”
Also inducted into the Niagara Boxing Legends as part of the Year of the Young Guns were Ray Napper, Jr., Steven Wilcox, Ryan Baulk, Daniel Ryan, Scottie Paul and Stephen Ryan.
