Black Country’s English Light Heavyweight champ Ricky Summers has been given a massive opportunity to step up and take on Anthony Yarde on the undercard of the Joyce, Zhang rematch. The fight will take place at Wembley Arena and will be shown live on BT Sports' on the 23rd September and will be contested over ten rounds.
Summers won the English Light Heavyweight title in his last contest against Joel McIntyre in March of this year winning a unanimous diction on points. Summers has won nineteen and drew one in twenty three contests. Summers has also contested for the British title back in 2017 losing on points to Frank Buglioni. His opponent Anthony Yarde has fought twenty six times and has three defeats to his name. His last contest was against Artur Beterbeiv with the IBF, WBC and WBO world titles on the line with the referee stopping the fight at the end of the eighth round.
I managed to catch up with ‘The Digger’ Ricky Summers and asked him about the fight. He told me “I know this is a massive step up for me Yarde is world class but these are the fights that I can really get up for. These are the fights I want especially at my age” summer’s continued “I have been waiting for a big fight ever since I won the English, I did hope that I could fight my pal Shakan Pitters for the British light heavyweight title but this has come up and it was too good to turn down”. We then chatted about his training and if he was going to change anything for it. Ricky told me “I have known there was the potential of this fight happening for a while but I had booked a family holiday which we all enjoyed and when I got back it was confirmed it was on. I have about 8 weeks to train for the fight so with the help of my BcB team I’ll be more than ready for this challenge”. Ricky finished by saying “A lot of people on social media have not given me a chance saying I won’t last two rounds but he is just a man with two arms and two legs and he has been beaten before, so why not again”.
Dexter’s Thoughts
What an opportunity this is for Ricky Summers who has always strived to be in big fights and now has been matched up against one of the best in Britain and possibly the world. This was a fight a man like Ricky Summers would always take and this is a contest where we could see the best of ‘The Digger’ come out. Make no mistake this is a big ask for the Black Country Lad but like Ricky said he only has two arms and two legs and he has lost before so in my opinion if Ricky turns up ready for war he is going to ask some serious questions of Yarde. This will be a massive pay day regardless of the outcome for Ricky and if he wins the boxing world will be his ouster and he will be propel into the world level of Light Heavyweight boxing. This is more than possible and I’m sure Ricky and his team will have a plan to beat Yarde. On a personal level I would love to see Ricky Summers against Shakan Pitters for the British title. They have spared many times against each other and are friends but what a fight for the Midlands that would be. All I can say is that I look forward to see Summers in action on September 23rd and hopefully causing one of the biggest upset in boxing in years.