A record of the man's effort outside the ring (7)
I believe the answer is:
history
'a record' is the definition.
(I know that history is a type of record)
'man's effort outside the ring' is the wordplay.
'man's' becomes 'His' (belonging to a man).
'effort' becomes 'try' (synonyms).
'outside' indicates putting letters inside.
'the ring' becomes 'o' (letter resembling a ring).
'try' going around 'o' is 'tory'.
'his'+'tory'='HISTORY'
'of the' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for history that I've seen before include "Study of past events" , "Life story" , "Old record" , "The record of past events" , "Chronicle" .)