At the age of 20, he defeated another Sheffield boxer Paul "Silky" Jones with a technical knock out in the eighth round to become the youngest post-war holder of the British title.
[1] On 13 December 1997, Rhodes stepped up a weight division to middleweight to challenge the Canadian Otis Grant for the vacant WBO title but was defeated by a unanimous decision.
[2] Since then he has defeated Vincent Vuma of South Africa to win the WBC International light middleweight title and in doing so obtained a ranking in the top ten in the world.
[3] Rhodes was due to defend his British light middleweight title against the Londoner Anthony Small at the Echo Arena in Liverpool on 28 March 2008, but withdrew because of an illness during his training camp.
Rhodes lost his WBC light middleweight challenge bout against Canelo Álvarez with a technical knockout in the twelfth round on 18 June 2011 in Guadalajara, Mexico.