![\"Selby](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/lee-selby.jpg\")
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Selby made light work of Rizzo in his bare-knuckle boxing debut, live on talkSPORTCredit: BKB <\/p>\n
Despite the long layoff, there were no signs of ring rust as Selby, 39, rolled back the years to blow away Italy’s Antonio Rizzo in the second round<\/p>\n
“It felt amazing, and don’t forget, I’m almost 40 years of age,” said Selby post-fight.<\/p>\n
“Rizzo is almost half my age; he could be my son.<\/p>\n
“So I’m doing it for the 40-year-olds, the 40 club.<\/p>\n
READ MORE ON BOXING <\/p>\n
“Like NWA said, I’ve got an appetite for destruction.”<\/p>\n
Story of the fight <\/p>\n
Bare-knuckle boxing veteran Rizzo looked to overwhelm Selby early as he marched forward, swinging with reckless abandon.<\/p>\n
While his front foot aggression forced Selby onto his heels early, Rizzo’s shots were wild and telegraphed.<\/p>\n
Selby got the measure of his man almost immediately and comfortably evaded the majority of the punches coming his way.<\/p>\n
As the round wore on, Selby got more and more comfortable, with his ram-rod jab repeatedly snapping back Rizzo’s head as the Italian lunged in.<\/p>\n
The first shot to really cause a dent in Rizzo was a stabbing right hand to the body that drew a grimace out of the travelling fighter.<\/p>\n
Sensing that his opponent was in discomfort, Selby stepped in with a right hand to the head to score the first knockdown of the fight at the end of round one.<\/p>\n
Rizzo survived to hear the bell, but he would be sent tumbling back down to the canvas three more times in the next frame en route to the eventual knockout.<\/p>\n
The second and third round knockdowns came courtesy of short right hands landed around the guard, while the fourth and final fall was caused by a sickening left hook to the liver. <\/p>\n
Selby is now setting his sights on world titles and called for a shot at super lightweight champion Estevan Partida, who scored a last-gasp stoppage victory over his close friend Kallum Shkhane in May to pick up the belt.<\/p>\n
World title fight next?<\/p>\n
“Yes, I do [want a world title shot],” added Selby.<\/p>\n
“I want to avenge my good friend and sparring partner, Kallum Shkane and the loss when he fought for the world title.<\/p>\n
Read More on talkSPORT<\/p>\n
“I thought he was very unlucky to get stopped just before the bell when I thought he was winning on points.”<\/p>\n
You can watch back the full BKB 55 card live on the talkSPORT Boxing YouTube channel below.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lee Selby got off to a flying start to his bare-knuckle boxing career. The former IBF featherweight champion…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1056795,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4108],"tags":[290235,113402,289637,290236,1935,4496,75863,8639,79,16,15],"class_list":["post-1056794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-antonio-rizzo","tag-bare-knuckle-boxing","tag-bkb-55","tag-bkb-carange-in-cardiff","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-news","tag-lee-selby","tag-result","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1056794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1056794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1056794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1056795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1056794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1056794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1056794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}