Niagara boxing legend Stephen Ryan
Stephen Ryan is the youngest of the young guns to be honoured at the Niagara Legends Boxing Show Friday night at the Merritton Community Centre.
Also being inducted into the Niagara Boxing Legends as part of the Year of the Young Guns are Ryan Baulk, Steven Wilcox, Ryan Rannelli, Daniel Ryan, Scottie Paul and Ray Napper Jr.
Ryan, a 25-year-old St. Catharines native, started coming to the St. Catharines Boxing Club when he was 10 or 11.
“Right away I started winning. I was going over to the States and stuff where there was good competition. As soon as I came back to Canada, I started winning Ontario championships and I went to nationals almost every year when I was younger.”
The pipe layer by trade won every provincial championship he competed in except for one in a nine-year span of dominance.
He clearly remembers his lone loss.
“It was here in the Falls and I got a silver to Spencer Wilcox. He was good man, he was good. That was the same year I faced Spencer in the first round at nationals. We looked at each other and said, ‘Let’s do it again. Let’s run it back’ and I lost a decision to him again.”
At nationals, he won a gold medal in the youth division, a silver at the Canadian seniors in 2018 and a silver medal at the Ringside World Championships.
He stopped boxing when he was 20, the same year he lost to Spencer Wilcox at nationals.
“I had one more fight against the Scottish champion who came over and I beat him and I kind of just fell away from it,” he said. “There was nothing in particular. I grew apart from it and stopped going to the gym so often.”
Leaving boxing rates as the low point of his career.
“I probably shouldn’t have.”
He still has the itch to get back in the ring.
“All the time. Just two weeks ago I was here sparring Gerry my brother. I still come in once in awhile.”
He has many highlights in his career but his high point was the 2018 national championships when he was competing alongside his cousins James Hughes, Antonio Napolitano and brother Gerry.
“We were all going and we had been beating everybody and knocking guys out. There was four of us, we were all family just smashing everybody and we all did well. Gerry got a bronze, Antonio got a silver, I got a silver and James won the gold. I remember Gerry knocked his guy out with a body shot and I knocked a guy out in the first round, ”
He is not sure why he stayed in boxing so long.
“Everybody else was doing it and it seemed like the thing to do. A family thing.”
Scheduled to make guest appearances at the fight card are Gerry Cooney and Boom Boom Mancini.
St. Catharines boxers scheduled to fight on the card are Dylan Maisonneuve, Irish Gavin Freel, Bobby Haynes, Ray Adamyk, Pat Ryan, Alex Lindsay, Megan (Mad Dog) Reynolds and Aasher Raja.
Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the door. For more information or tickets call 905-988-1244.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and boxing starts at 7:30 p.m.
