Ryan Burnett
He is the middle child of three brothers,[1] Burnett was educated at St Patrick's College, a Roman Catholic secondary school on the Antrim Road.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.[9] 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.[12][13] 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."[18][19] Speaking of judge Sammartino, Robert Smith, the British Boxing Board of Control secretary stated, "He will not be coming back to this country and I will be telling the IBF."[20] WBO beltholder Zolani Tete called out Burnett for a unification bout, stating he was happy for it to take place in Belfast.[21] Although Burnett did not take Tete's offer, he still chased a unification fight and on 2 August 2017, a deal was reached for him to defend his IBF title against WBA Undisupted champion Zhanat Zhakiyanov (27-1, 18 KOs) at the SSE Arena in Belfast on 21 October.Ricky Hatton, who also trained Burnett, was Zhakiyanov's trainer and led him to win the WBA belt against Rau'shee Warren on 10 February.[22] In front large pro-Burnett crowd, Burnett won a wide 12 round unanimous decision over Zhakiyanov to become the unified IBF and WBA bantamweight champion.[26][27] At the time the purse bids were ordered, Eddie Hearn was already in talks with Venezuelan boxer Yonfrez Parejo (21-2-1, 10 KOs), who is also the WBA mandatory, to hold a fight on the Joshua vs. Parker undercard on 31 March at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff.Hearn explained to Sky Sports, "The IBF called an interim title bout between Emmanuel Rodriguez and Lee Haskins, so we proceeded to make the fight with our WBA mandatory, Parejo.Last week we were notified that the [Rodriguez-Haskins] bout would no longer take place and that Rodriguez’s team [was] not willing to negotiate, and they called immediate purse bids.His opponent for the return bout was scheduled to be Filipino boxer Jelbirt Gomera (14-5, 7 KOs) for the vacant WBC International super-bantamweight title.In the sixth round, Gomera complained again and turned his back, at which point the referee decided to wave off the fight immediately, and award Burnett the TKO win.