Ryan Rozicki embodies so much of what Zuffa Boxing executives have railed against in their dismissal of the sport’s four sanctioning bodies.
After multiple delays and repeated frustrations in attempting to land a world-title shot, Rozicki walked away from being the WBC’s No. 1-ranked cruiserweight contender to join Zuffa.
The new promotion headed by TKO Group executives Nick Khan and Dana White makes its U.K. debut Saturday night on Paramount+ and Sky by staging Canada’s Rozicki, 21-1-1 (20 KOs), versus former WBO champion Chris Billam-Smith, 21-2 (13 KOs), in the main event.
“Chris was the best, highest-ranked opponent available. This was the greatest [streaming] platform. It was a no-brainer,” Rozicki told BoxingScene. “And they said, ‘If you can beat him, you’re going to get these guys that are even better fighters.’ So I thought, ‘Why wouldn’t I do that instead of chasing guys behind me?’”
Rozicki is referencing unbeaten Zuffa cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia, the recent IBF champion who’s finalizing a deal to fight Rozicki’s WBC-champion nemesis Noel Mikaelian.
In late November, Rozicki boarded a flight to Thailand to effectively communicate his angst at the WBC Convention in Bangkok after languishing so long in line for a fight against Mikaelian, and for a deserved shot at the belt.
“The world title was a goal I chased for a long time, but then you saw what happened,” Rozicki said in reference to Mikaelian’s repeated withdrawals from a WBC cruiserweight title fight versus Rozicki dating to 2024.
When Rozicki, 31, was finally in position to have a title shot at Badou Jack, he suffered a biceps injury he blames on prolonged training and had to watch in distress as Mikaelian got the title fight.
“I had more injuries from all that training than the torn biceps. I just didn’t publicize them,” Rozicki said. “I should’ve got the Badou Jack fight, but who gets the opportunity? Mikaelian. Who loses, and then gets a rematch? Mikaelian. I’m sitting there watching this whole thing, wondering, ‘Why is he the one getting the rematch?’ He got his shot. He loses, he should be out.
“But then he gets the belt [by defeating Jack in the December rematch]. Now, we’ve seen him hold that belt hostage for as long as he possibly can.”
For Rozicki, the silliness of the gamesmanship and selective maneuvering is especially troubling since he has extensively studied and modelled his career after the no-nonsense legendary heavyweight champion from 1919-1926, Jack Dempsey.
“I only followed the eras of Dempsey, [Rocky] Marciano and [Joe] Louis, when you had world champions who would fight the top contenders,” he said. “Whereas, today, I don’t know what’s happened to boxing – is it politics? Is it money?
“Fighters get to choose if they want to defend against this guy or not. I was No. 1 mandatory for how long? And how many times did I get to go into the ring and fight for it? Zero. It makes no sense. I just stopped fixating on it, and my goal now is to get into the ring with the best fighters I can.”
Billam-Smith, 35, hosts Rozicki in his hometown of Bournemouth, England after previously standing as cruiserweight champion for more than a year before losing his WBO belt in 2024 to Mexico’s Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez.
“I’m looking forward to the fight, to the challenge. He’s a hell of a fighter. I’ve seen him fight in person. I know what I’m up against,” Rozicki said.
“It’s the first fight in a long time I’m going in with no injuries. Whatever happens in the fight happens, but I know I’m coming there as best as I can be.”
It offers insight into the truth Rozicki espouses as a throwback, as a man who said he knew since childhood he was born to be a fighter.
Some of those battles took place out of the ring, and many with himself, as Rozicki strayed into trouble that imperiled his boxing ambition.
Having read Dempsey’s life story, Rozicki recounted a tale he told the WBC board in Thailand, yearning to communicate his devotion to the sport.
“There was this time I went real sideways and fell into some real tough situations outside the ring, heading down a bad path again,” Rozicki said.
“I went to an amateur boxing show my friend invited me to, along with a couple kids who wanted me to work the corner. In the dressing room, this old guy said, ‘I’ve got something for you,’ and he gave me this book. Jack Dempsey’s book. A very rare, old copy of his life story, one of the last books he’d ever written. I took it and thought, ‘Wow, this is a sign for me to get my head back to boxing.’”
Rozicki carries that book with him to every fight.
“There’s nothing I haven’t seen on [Dempsey] – read every book,” Rozicki said. “Then I would look up his opponents, read all of that and it spiraled from there. I became almost obsessed with those whole era – all the way up to the 1950s.
“Dempsey was my inspiration. I wanted to fight like him, be like him. That was always the thing that kept me on track.”
Some would say Rozicki’s aggressive, defensively lax style is a pure copy of the “Manassa Mauler’s” way.
“There’s a huge misconception on that, and Dempsey actually has a book called, ‘Aggressive Defense,’” Rozicki said. “His whole thing was that the best defense is a good offense. His defense was a lot better than people give him credit for. He was extremely hard to hit. A lot of his opponents, including [Gene] Tunney, talked about it.
“Even if you hit him, he used to chew pine gum so his jaw was like cement. He was so hard to knock out. Even just to hit him clean, he would always be coming right at you but his head was constantly moving on a figure eight, which I try my best to emulate. Sometimes it’s not a traditional style, like [heavyweight champion Oleksandr] Usyk, where I’m stepping into range or a [Vasiliy] Lomachenko style, where I’m coming around the side… I’m coming straight at them. It’s very easy to think I don’t have a defense. Truth is, if I didn’t have a defense, I would’ve been stopped countless times.”
Rozicki is 15-0-1 as a cruiserweight, with his one loss coming five years ago as a heavyweight.
Now, he ventures to the old world.
“I like it. It’s an old-school way to do it: Go into their backyard as an underdog,” Rozicki said. “I’ve got a real champion in front of me. I can’t wait.
“I know he’s a great fighter and I have a lot of respect for him, but when the bell rings, that all goes out the window, and I’m going to try and hurt him.”
