Whanganui-born Robert `the Butcher' Berridge has announced his retirement from boxing.
Expat Whanganui boxer Robert Berridge has answered his last bell as the 32-year-old announced his retirement from the sport on Friday.
Berridge finishes as the longest reigning NZPBA champion, being the holder of the organisation's light heavyweight belt and still ranked as No1 in the division in the country, and independently at 108th in the world by respected website BoxRec.com.
The Albany-based fighter challenged for lightly regarded world titles three times, being defeated on each occasion, as in the past 12 months he became regarded as a respectable boxer to travel overseas and meet leading contenders, often at short notice.
Berridge lost a contentious points decision to Singapore-based Canadian Ryan Ford for the Universal Boxing Organisation (UBO) light heavyweight title in Singapore two weeks ago, when the bout ended prematurely due to a Berridge cut.
He announced is retirement in a Facebook post on Friday.
"All good things must come to an end.
"Boxing has been a massive chapter in my life and gave it a good run considering I only started at 20, to get fit for football, at Northside Boxing.
"We reached some massive highs [and] got some good titles, and also the lows of losing those titles, but was always fun."
Berridge thanked his wife Renee, manager Vasco Kovacevic and trainer Cleve Langdon for all their efforts and support.
He also singled out cousin Paul Berridge, who served as his cornerman and often helped train 'the Butcher' in Whanganui during a series of camps at the old Fight Fit gym.
Paul Berridge and his company Akira Events organised for his cousin to fight in the main event of the 'Rise of the Fallen' show in Whanganui in April 2015, the biggest boxing card seen in the town with over 1000 fans at Springvale Stadium.
Robert Berridge also thanked his many sponsors in the farewell post.
"Sorry to the people I missed out but without all these people the work couldn't have been done, and to all the supporters, thank you so much for having my back through every fight."
Back in January, Kovacevic had told the Wanganui Chronicle that his fighter had set himself 18 more months to try and make it on the world stage, which was then followed by back-to-back losses in overseas title fights.
At his career peak, Berridge (29-7-1, 21 knock outs) held regional titles for the WBA, WBC, WBO and IBO organisations and reached 22nd in the world rankings.
The WBO organisation had him in their Top 10, while the WBA ranked him as high as 12th, as the brawling southpaw seemed on the cusp of earning a major money fight for a world championship.
Berridge's career hit a stumbling block in August 2014 when, coming off a nine fight win streak, all by stoppage, he was knocked out by Russian Vasily Lepikhin in his debut bout in America, ending immediate hopes of a world title shot.
An intoxicated incident that December at the Fight for Life resulted in handlers Duco Events terminating his six-year contract.
Berridge attended counselling and won his next two fights before losing a points decision to an overweight South African Thomas Oosthuizen for the IBO world title in Gauteng, June 2016.
His next big overseas bout was a unanimous points loss to the well-regarded Eleider Alvarez in Quebec City in July 2016.
Berridge rebounded by beating top Kiwi light heavyweights Sam Rapira and Adrian Taihia in September and October, the latter bout ending over three years of bad blood.
Notably, both Rapira and Taihia have also announced retirement within the last 12 months, which with Berridge hanging up the gloves leaves a hole in the light heavyweight division.
Berridge had one more shot at glory in February when he challenged Dmitry Bivol for the Interim WBA world light heavyweight belt in the Russian city of Perm.
The fight was stopped in the fourth round after Berridge was knocked down and cut badly.
In the course of his entire career, Berridge fought professionally 37 times for 187 rounds.
He picked up wins over many creditable boxers including Rapira, Taihia, Daniel MacKinnon, Serge Yannick and Trent Broadhurst.
