Ryan Burnett

Ryan Burnett (born 21 May 1992) is an Irish former professional boxer who competed from 2013 to 2019.

As an amateur, he represented Ireland at the 2010 Summer Youth Olympics and won a gold medal in the light-flyweight division.

Burnett was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

He is the middle child of three brothers, Burnett was educated at St Patrick's College, a Roman Catholic secondary school on the Antrim Road..

With an interest in boxing from as young as four years of age, Burnett began training at Belfast's Kronk Gym before moving to Gerry Storey's Holy Family Boxing Club, a gym famed for uniting boxers of different religious and political backgrounds.

Fighters like Burnett and Paddy Barnes, have always trained here alongside fighters of unionist backgrounds such as Carl Frampton, which through the years helped break down borders in their community.

Burnett amassed an amateur record of 94 wins and 4 losses; he claims to still "dispute most of those losses."

While rising to number one in the AIBA World Youth amateur rankings, Burnett won seven All Ireland titles and four Ulster titles, along with several multi-nations tournament medals.

The highlights of his amateur career were his silver and gold medal wins at the World Youth Championships and Olympic Youth Games, respectively.

After acquiring those medals, Burnett suffered a back injury that ruled him out of competition for a year, and hampered his opportunities for success at senior level.

Not long after regaining fitness, Burnett decided to turn professional.

Burnett won five fights in seven days on his way to the final of the World Youth Championships in Baku.

He defeated Erik Sokolov of Germany – 4–0, Manuel Fabrizio of Italy – 3–1, and Rober Estrada Barrera of Colombia – 16–4 in the first three rounds.

In the quarter-finals he met Filipino fighter Mark Anthony Barriga, who he overcame with a 6–4 win.

In the semi's, he defeated Cuban fighter Yosvany Veitía in a 5–3 victory.

Burnett then met local Azerbaijani, Salman Alizade in the final.

After a gruelling week for Burnett, the home favourite took the win, sending Burnett home with a silver medal.

Burnett won gold at the inaugural Olympic Youth Games in 2010, and became the first ever Youth Olympics boxing gold medalist in the process.

In the semi-final of the games, which took place in Singapore, Burnett defeated Zohidion Hoorboyev of Uzbekistan.

In the final, Burnett once again met Salman Alizade, who he had lost to in the World Championships.

Alizada went into the fight as the world number one, but Burnett avenged his previous loss with a dominant 13–6 victory.

Burnett turned professional in January 2012, after signing a deal with Hatton Promotions.

He then moved to Manchester, England where he would be trained by company founder – former world champion Ricky Hatton.

With Hatton Promotions enduring turbulent times, Burnett was forced to leave their stable in September 2014.

After what had been a long spell out of competition, he joined up with Adam Booth in London to kick-start his pro career.

At regional level he held the British bantamweight title from 2015 to 2017.

In November 2015, Burnett received a shot at the vacant British bantamweight title against former holder, Jason Booth.

Despite managing a first round knockdown over the veteran Brit, Burnett was taken the distance and won the fight via unanimous decision.

The fight would Mark Haskins' third defence since winning the title in 2015.

Speaking on his first world title challenge, Burnett said, "I always dreamed of headlining in Belfast and now I have the opportunity to do it for a World Title – I’m so excited."

Burnett defeated Haskins via a 12-round split decision to win his first world title and become Northern Ireland's first world bantamweight champion on 20 years.

Burnett dropped Haskins twice in the fight in knocking him down once in round 6 and again in round 11.

Both fighters were cut from a clash of heads in the round 2.

The final judges’ scores were 119-107, 119-107 for Burnett and 118-108 for Haskins.

The result was later changed to a unanimous decision as judge Clark Sammartino who scored the fight for Haskins put the wrong name in the box.

In January 2016, it was announced that Burnett would fight on the undercard of fellow Belfast boxer, Carl Frampton, in his world title unification bout with Scott Quigg at the Manchester Arena on 27 February 2016.

Burnett faced Frenchman, Anthony Settoul, for the WBC International bantamweight title.

Burnett produced a highly praised performance, and won the fight through another unanimous decision.

He was a unified bantamweight world champion, having held the WBA (Unified) and IBF titles between 2017 and 2018.

On 27 April 2017, it was announced that Burnett would challenge Lee Haskins for the IBF bantamweight title on 10 June at the SSE Arena in Belfast, live on Sky Sports.