Shriners Children’s Hospital being treated for a broken and infected leg is now pursuing his passion in the boxing ring<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\nRick Welliver, a former professional boxer and owner of the Spokane Boxing Gym, says 21-year-old Yakobo Mleha has put in the work.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“He\u2019s learned that if you keep showing up and you work hard at something, anything is possible,” said Welliver. “And, he\u2019s been a big part of our gym.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Welliver says he has worked with countless athletes over the years, but few with as compelling a story as Yakobo\u2019s.<\/p>\n
“You\u2019ve got people who are always looking for excuses to not box, ‘I can\u2019t do this, and this is why\u2026and blah, blah, blah.’ Yeah, you can. You can box, and that kid over there, he\u2019s overcome dozens of operations\u2026\u201d said Welliver. “Look at him\u2026look what he\u2019s done. Look what he\u2019s overcome.”<\/p>\n
Long before Yakobo stepped foot in a boxing ring, he spent years at Shriners Hospital.<\/p>\n
Born in Tanzania, Yakobo broke his leg as a young boy, and it was never properly set. Doctors say he likely had a bone infection at some point, and doctors in Africa didn\u2019t think they could fix it and instead wanted to amputate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yakobo says his mom and the doctors at Shriners had other ideas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We looked at him and said, ‘Well…we can make you walk better again,'” said Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Bryan Tompkins. “We basically put the two ends that weren\u2019t connected. Get that to heal back together with the surgery, and then we had to lengthen the bone back out over time to make it the same size as the other side.”<\/p>\n
Video from Shriners\u2019 motion-analysis lab shows the remarkable results over time. After several surgeries, countless hours of rehab, and a lot of work, Yakobo was finally able to walk, run, and jump just like any other kid.<\/p>\n
“It’s pretty unbelievable because if you would have told me in 2010 that I would be out here boxing and doing all these other activities that I would never think I would do…It’s crazy,” said Yakobo.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After years of training, last month Yakobo entered the Pendleton Boxing Classic, a sanctioned amateur tournament in Oregon. The welterweight won both of his fights and came home a champion.<\/p>\n
“It was a big hurdle because I was so nervous, and it’s just mental and everything, it was big but I\u2019m glad I got over it because it really showed me that you can do anything if you set your mind to it,” said Yakobo.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He says he plans to keep training and fighting, with his sights set on nationals and the Golden Gloves.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“He could be a professional fighter. I know that\u2019s quick to say that. But if he gives us 5 good years\u2026in 5 years that conversation could be, what\u2019s next?” said Welliver.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For now, Yakobo says he\u2019ll keep showing up, keep putting in the work. And, do what he\u2019s done since he was a young boy, beat the odds.<\/p>\n
“Boxing is something I didn\u2019t think I would ever do because I was a scared kid, but I feel like boxing helped me overcome those fears too, and so I feel like it\u2019s just an unbelievable thing,” said Yakobo. “If you put your mind to it and everything in your heart you can really do a lot of things that you want to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yakobo just had another fight last weekend at an event put on at Brickwest in downtown Spokane, and won a 3-round decision, improving his record to 4-and-1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yakobo Mleha has undergone several surgeries and rehab hours after he broke his leg as a child, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-137505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}