Not many boxers know the harsh reality of what a defeat can do to your career more than Bradley Rea.<\/b><\/p>\n
In November 2022, the Lancashire fighter suffered his first professional loss in a close decision against Tyler Denny for the English middleweight title. <\/p>\n
While Denny went on to collect European honours and face Hamzah Sheeraz at Wembley Stadium, Rea has not competed on a televised card in two and a half years.<\/p>\n
That is set to change on 28 June when 27-year-old Rea headlines in Hull as he faces Shakan Pitters for the vacant European light-heavyweight title, which will be live on DAZN.<\/p>\n
It has taken 31 months to get away from the small-hall events and back in front of a broadcast audience, and Rea did not think he would have to wait this long for another shot.<\/p>\n
Rea, however, says he does not regret taking the risk that ultimately led to him slipping out of mainstream boxing.<\/p>\n
“Not for one second did I consider not taking the Denny fight,” he tells BBC Sport. <\/p>\n
“Since I turned pro, I’m in the game to test myself against the best possible opponents in the biggest possible fights. <\/p>\n
“I knew it was a dangerous fight, and I knew it was a fight that if I wasn’t on my A-game it would go the other way.<\/p>\n
“I didn’t turn up for one night, but people have bad days all the time. Losing your keys, stepping in a puddle, that’s a bad day for the average person. <\/p>\n
“For me, it’s getting my head punched in. I seem to have been judged based off that one night.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Not many boxers know the harsh reality of what a defeat can do to your career more than…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196936,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-196935","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114709640323498773","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196935","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=196935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}