Charles Shepherd (boxer)

Charles "The Bull" Shepherd (affectionately known as Charlie) is the former British, Commonwealth and World Super Featherweight boxing champion.

Born in Burnley, Lancashire on the 28th of June 1970, Shepherd began boxing at the age of twelve becoming a British ABA champion aged fifteen. Shepherd moved to Cumbria when he was sixteen and made a winning professional debut in 1991. After several impressive performances Shepherd earned a crack at the British Super Featherweight title in 1996 against PJ Gallagher. The fight was a classic with Gallagher somehow managing to hang on for a controversial half point victory after Shepherd had sent him crashing to the canvas in the twelth round. The British Boxing Board of Control ordered an immediate rematch but Gallagher chose to relinguish the title rather than face Shepherd a second time. The fight went on to be awarded the British Boxing Board of Control's 'Fight Of The Year' at their annual award ceremony. In 1997 Shepherd defeated Dave McHale to finally claim the British Super Featherweight title and at the same time become Cumbria's first ever boxing champion. In one of the most one sided fights seen Shepherd floored McHale twice in the first round and eventually knocked his opponent clean out of the ring in the tenth. Shepherd successfully defended the title against Matt Brown only two months later. Shepherd then went on to successfully defend the title a third time in 1998 against Peter Judson at The Royal Albert Hall in London winning a coveted Lonsdale Belt in the process. A year later and Shepherd claimed the Commonwealth Super Featherweight title in his adopted home city of Carlisle after knocking out Zimbabwe's Trust Ndlovu in the sixth round. Shepherd defended the title in the same year against the Ghanaian Smith Odoom and was again victorious winning comprehensively on points. In July 1999 Shepherd faced his greatest challenge when he fought the legendary American boxer Tom "Boom Boom" Johnson for the vacant IBO World Super Featherweight title but claimed a famous victory on points against his much fancied opponent. Around this time talks had progressed regarding the possibilty of Shepherd dropping a weight to featherweight and fighting the biggest name in boxing a certain Naseem Hamed and it was with this in mind that Shepherd entered the ring weighing in at only nine stone and half a pound when he made the first defence of his world title against Affif Djelti in February 2000. Despite knocking the Frenchman out of the ring in the first round Shepherd suffered a shock loss losing by way of TKO in round six. Shepherd later acknowledged that "trying to show i could make featherweight was a big mistake and cost me my title". Although he made a successful comeback four months later when he beat the Ukrainian Rakhim Mingaleev on points to claim the IBO Inter-Continental Super Featherweight title, Shepherd decided to retire after failing to get the rematch he craved against Djelti. After six months out of boxing Shepherd decided to make a comeback as a lightweight and after winning a couple of warm up fights he challenged Barry Hughes for the WBU International title in Hughes's home city of Glasgow. The fight ended controversially in a majority draw even though one of the judges had Shepherd winning by six rounds. This was to be Shepherd's last fight as he finally decided to call it a day after failing to get a rematch with Hughes.

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Name	Shepherd, Charles
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Date of birth	1970
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