This past Saturday, Sergey Rabchenko won the vacant European junior middleweight title when he stopped Ryan Rhodes in the seventh round in Manchester. At 35 Rhodes appears to have knowhere to go, but he refused to accept the sixth defeat of his career means the end.

"If you get caught in the right place with a body shot it's over," he told Sky Sports. "He caught me with a brilliant body shot, if you get caught there it's over. I felt good, I felt like I was making him miss, I wobbled him in the third round but he's got a good chin, there was no point wading in and trying to finish him there and then.

"I felt I was ahead in the fight, but it's one of them things I got caught with a very good body shot. It was nothing to do with age, I felt fantastic in training, I just got caught with the best body shot in my entire life. I feel like I've still got a lot to give in the game, we'll sit down and see where we go from here but this isn't the end of Ryan Rhodes."