{"id":588894,"date":"2026-04-06T10:15:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T10:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/588894\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T10:15:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T10:15:07","slug":"boxing-delicious-orie-says-depression-fear-drove-his-retirement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/588894\/","title":{"rendered":"Boxing: Delicious Orie says depression fear drove his retirement"},"content":{"rendered":"

“I fear that I would have ended up being a world champion but a very depressed, sad and miserable world champion.”<\/p>\n

Delicious Orie had the world at his feet when he made his professional debut a year ago. <\/p>\n

After the Paris Olympics there was a bidding war for him despite the heavyweight failing to win a medal.<\/a> <\/p>\n

Frank Warren’s Queensberry eventually saw off Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom as well as interest from the WWE<\/a> to sign him.<\/p>\n

He was the next big thing in heavyweight boxing. And then a month later, Orie announced his shock decision to walk away from boxing altogether.<\/p>\n

“I wanted to pull out before the boxing exposed me,” he tells BBC Sport.<\/p>\n

“I turned pro for the money, I needed the money, only to realise that money gives you a little bit of happiness, it really does, but it gives you zero fulfilment. Nothing. You feel nothing.”<\/p>\n

Orie was a standout fighter in the amateur ranks despite only taking up the sport aged 18. Originally from Russia, he moved to the UK as a child with his family. <\/p>\n

He set high standards for himself, even as a seven-year-old realising the opportunities available to him in the UK.<\/p>\n

Orie worked for years to become part of Team GB and secure a regular income from boxing. His goal, over a near-decade journey, was to be Olympic champion. When that did not happen, Orie felt a shift inside him, even if it was subtle.<\/p>\n

“There was no plan B, there was no other thing, it was just tunnel vision to win that medal,” he says.<\/p>\n

“So the fact that I didn’t magnified the feeling even more when my hand wasn’t raised.<\/p>\n

“I gave everything to the sport, I missed everything – happiness, birthdays, weddings, funerals, everything,” he adds.<\/p>\n

“Knowing that I could never achieve that again when I didn’t have my hand raised, that was very sobering.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“I fear that I would have ended up being a world champion but a very depressed, sad and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-588894","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-boxing","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}