Born on the Ivory Coast, but fighting out of Brussels, 24 year old, Ryad Merhy is already making waves and stamping his mark on the international boxing arena. After already impressive and dominant victories in his young career, as well as being the reigning, defending WBA Intercontinental Cruiserweight Champion, he has proven that he is going to become one of the best Cruiserweights in the world of boxing.
A professional boxer for a little over four years now, Ryad has an undefeated record of 23 victories, including 19 wins by knockout. Since his debut against Hrvoje Bozinovic on the 29th of June, 2013, he hasn’t looked close to getting beat.
It was by reading the Japanese manga “MAKUNOUCHI IPPO” where Merhy discovered boxing. Since that day, he fell in love and decided to follow through with his passion for boxing and found a mentor in Patrick Tehys at BC Kyrios Vitalis.
On the 14th of March, 2010, Merhy became the champion of the Francophone League of Boxing in the Light Heavyweight category. Adding to that accomplishment, on January 9th, 2011, he became the amateur Light Heavyweight champion of Belgium.
In September of 2012, he decided to put his amateur boxing career on hold and move to the Caribbean. After eight months away, Ryad reappeared and won his last two amateur fights before turning pro in June, 2013.
Since then, Ryad has gone on and defeated the likes of Paata Berikashvilli, Sylvera Louis, Max Alexander and also Mitch Williams earlier this year in May.
Alongside his mentor Patrick Theys, he added Daniel Beun as a coach in March of 2015, who has added a lot of energy to Merhy’s training regime. As well as experienced physical trainer Jonas Wallens, who always gets him at his top physical peak. Merhy is also managed by one of the best managers in Belgium, Alain Vanackère.
Merhy learns and adapts different techniques very quickly, studying video on moments and styles that he looks to add to his boxing by replicating them during his sparring sessions to perfect and improve himself. Doing the same to analyze an opponent by watching video on his opponent for only one or two times over, allowing him to see their strengths and weaknesses. However, he doesn’t prepare any specific sort of gameplay for a fight. After sparring and his fights, Ryad views the video of it a good ten times that same evening, so he can constantly look over and improve on what he needs to.
Ryad Merhy is one of the best young talents in boxing today. He never gives up, puts the work in and is determined on being the best not only in his division, but in the world. Merhy is one to watch and one you will be hearing a lot more of in the future. In addition to his talent, his mind and his intelligence put him in a position to constantly grow and improve as a boxer and be a future world champion.
