{"id":637054,"date":"2026-04-29T20:29:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T20:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/637054\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T20:29:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T20:29:09","slug":"chris-billam-smith-to-fight-ryan-rozicki-in-bournemouth-in-first-zuffa-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/637054\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Billam-Smith to fight Ryan Rozicki in Bournemouth in first Zuffa show"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former world cruiserweight champion Chris Billam-Smith will headline Zuffa Boxing’s first show in the UK. <\/p>\n

‘The Gentleman’ will face Canadian Ryan Rozicki at the Bournemouth International Centre (BIC) on 6 June. <\/p>\n

This will be Billam-Smith’s first bout in more than a year since he beat American Brandon Glanton<\/a> at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. <\/p>\n

The 35-year-old from Dorset has previously fought at the BIC on three occasions and won a world title<\/a> at Bournemouth’s Vitality Stadium in 2023.<\/p>\n

Billam-Smith signed a multi-fight deal with Dana White’s Zuffa Boxing<\/a> earlier this month after previously being promoted by Ben Shalom’s Boxxer. <\/p>\n

“I’m so happy, not only to be back boxing after over a year, but to be back home,” Billam-Smith told BBC Sport. <\/p>\n

“It’s Zuffa’s first show in the UK and it’s going to be nice to set the standard for UK shows and show them what the atmosphere is like down here. <\/p>\n

“They’ll be astounded by the amount of noise that arena can make. I got into the sport because of the atmosphere and to be the man in the arena in that noise is such an honour and I’m so grateful to my supporters.”<\/p>\n

Zuffa has previously held events in the United States and this will be their seventh show since launching their first in January. <\/a><\/p>\n

The promotional company also have on their books cruiserweight star Jai Opetaia, someone Billam-Smith said he would be keen to fight in the near future. <\/p>\n

Rozicki has 21 wins to his name, with 20 of them by knockout, with just one defeat and one draw on his record. <\/p>\n

He has previously fought for the WBC interim cruiserweight title and this will be his first fight outside of Canada.<\/p>\n

“He’s a dangerous fighter and I’ve known about him for a few years,” Billam-Smith added. <\/p>\n

“His record speaks for itself; he’s a huge and dangerous puncher with power in both hands, he’s an unknown quantity too and this is a dangerous fight. <\/p>\n

“But these are the fights I want now and have to get up for at this stage in my career. I have to be switched on 100%.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former world cruiserweight champion Chris Billam-Smith will headline Zuffa Boxing’s first show in the UK. ‘The Gentleman’ will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-637054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}