Wade Ryan is determined to paint Paris Black n Blue next month when he travels to the French capital to fight for the WBC Silver Super Welterweight Title.
The 34-year-old Gunnedah boxer will face one of his toughest tests yet when he takes on 21-year-old Bakary Samake, who is currently undefeated and will have a strong home crowd advantage behind him when the duo square up at Westfield forum des halles on November 23.
Ryan currently holds the IBF Pan Pacific Super Welterweight and WBO Oriental Super Welterweight titles, but the WBC Silver Title would be his most prestigious victory to date.
The Black n Blue boxer is relishing the opportunity and said that he was expecting a tough fight from Samake.
“I know a bit about him. We’ve done a fair bit of research on him,” ‘The Boogeyman’ told the Gunnedah Times.
“He’s got quite a following and quite a good record. He’s a sharp fighter and a pretty established professional.
“It’s a good opportunity and it’ll be a good fight.
“The WBC Silver Title is a big, well-known belt, and a lot of big names have held it. Erickson Lubin vacated it, so it’s actually vacant at the moment.
“It’s a big opportunity to fight for it, and if all goes well and goes to plan, this fight can put us in the frame for a world title fight.”
As well as looking forward to the chance to fight for the title, Ryan is just as excited to test himself against a highly-touted up and coming boxer who is yet to be beaten in 16 fights.
“It’s exciting and a good challenge,” the Gunnedah man said.
“Once you start fighting these blokes, they are all really good.
“He’s no exception and we will have to prepare right and prepare for the best version of him.
“This will be my third international fight. I went to China two years before Covid hit and then fought in Japan in March.
“You take things out of every fight, but especially that Japan fight, I’ve taken a lot out of it.
“Paris will be a really good challenge. Getting to fight in front of a crowd like that will be cool.
“A lot of people have been saying the fans there are very one-eyed towards their own, which is all part of it. They’ll be supporting their man.
“We’ve just got to focus on ourselves.”
Ryan is undefeated in his past three fights dating back to March last year, and his most recent appearance in the ring was in March this year when he travelled to Japan to meet Takeshi Inoue.
The duo could not be split after 12 gruelling rounds and the bout ended as a draw.
Ryan thought he had done enough to win that one and was proud of his performance in what was his second international fight.
“That was a good fight in Japan. It was a 12-round fight for the WBO Asia Pacific and the OPBF Pan Pacific titles,” Ryan said.
“We ended up having a draw but we thought we’d done enough to win the fight.
“It felt a bit weird when both our hands went up because I’d never had a draw before.
“I felt quite confident there after the fight, but we were still happy to come away with a draw in Takeshi’s home country.”
There was a rematch clause in the event of a draw for that bout, but the two camps have been unable to agree to terms for a rematch so far.
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