Ike Ibeabuchi<\/a> answers FaceTime with his nose pressed up against the phone screen. His trademark mustache nestles on his top lip and a questionable internet connection buffers his responses. He sits on a bed, in Abuja, Nigeria, with his energetic niece punching and biting him, playfully, as he speaks.<\/p>\n\u201cWhich fight?\u201d he begins, in response to the agreed purpose of the call. I reiterate that he is due to fight British veteran Danny Williams on Aug. 23, but he\u2019s quick to rebuff this and offers up an attempted clarification.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Danny] Williams had to pull out,\u201d he continues. \u201cBut we have already got a new opponent: Idris Afinni. He is a big puncher, he\u2019s won his last few fights by knockout.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI ran 10 miles this morning. If I can do this, then I can box,\u201d he interjects, almost telegraphing my next question surrounding the legitimacy of this return. \u201cI have never been this energetic in my life. I train twice a day and it\u2019s not a problem at all. I still believe I am at the very top \u2014 nobody ever took me off the top.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s there the penny drops. Ibeabuchi speaks like an active fighter. He\u2019s well and truly under the spell of the fight game and considers himself still in the heavyweight mix, rather than a disgraced veteran who hasn\u2019t seen the inside of a professional ring since the release of Sony\u2019s Playstation 2 around the turn of the century. Instead of a legacy character to unlock, the Nigerian considers himself on the front cover; the reason you would purchase a boxing game. But we know too well that in reality, you don\u2019t play boxing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want a title shot,\u201d he continues. \u201cI look at the heavyweight picture like this: Myself, [Oleksandr] Usyk and [Moses] Itauma,\u201d he says. \u201cBut nobody wants to fight me.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have called out [Tyson] Fury multiple times, but he has always said that I need to have a comeback fight first and get a ranking, and then these big fights can happen. So that\u2019s exactly what I am doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cI have been sparring,\u201d he continues. He sends over a video of him working on the heavy bag with some loaded left hooks, and points me to the direction of a sparring session with 31-year-old current Nigerian heavyweight Efe Ajagba (20-1-1, 14 KOs). \u201cSparring is sparring,\u201d he says, still parroting the phrases of an active fighter. \u201cI was on top for most of it,\u201d he claims, \u201cbut we were only able to complete four rounds. I wasn\u2019t allowed to go any further.\u201d<\/p>\n
That leads to the question of why, and who was looking out for the safety of Ibeabuchi. But delving into the inner workings of his return are met with hostility. \u201cI don\u2019t want to disclose that information,\u201d he says in response to a question regarding his trainer for the fight. It is an \u201cinternal matter\u201d that isn\u2019t privy to journalists\u2019 questions. Has he been tested and cleared to fight by a governing body? \u201cThat is not a question for a journalist to be asking,\u201d he replies. \u201cIt is invasive coming from you.\u201d<\/p>\n
From Glory to Gory\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 1997, Ibeabuchi beat the previously unbeaten David Tua for the WBC International title in a fight that launched him into the spotlight of boxing\u2019s heavyweight division. Shortly after this 17th win of his professional career, the problems outside the ring started.<\/p>\n
Ibeabuchi was involved in a disturbing incident where he abducted the 15-year-old son of a former girlfriend and intentionally crashed his car into a concrete pillar on a Texas highway. The boy sustained serious injuries and was left permanently impaired. Ibeabuchi pleaded guilty to false imprisonment and was sentenced to 120 days in jail, also paying a $500,000 civil settlement. Authorities determined the crash was a suicide attempt.<\/p>\n
During this time, Ibeabuchi began adopting the persona of \u201cThe President,\u201d insisting those around him refer to him by the title. According to former HBO Sports executive Lou DiBella, Ibeabuchi would retreat into this alter ego, often behaving erratically and unpredictably. Promoter Cedric Kushner recounted a dinner meeting where Ibeabuchi drove a carving knife into the table, shouting, \u201cThey knew it! The belts belong to me! Why don\u2019t they just give them back?\u201d <\/p>\n
In July 1999, three months after his last fight \u2014 a fifth-round TKO of Chris Byrd \u2014 Ibeabuchi was arrested in Las Vegas after an alleged sexual assault at The Mirage. A 21-year-old escort claimed that Ibeabuchi attacked her after refusing to pay up front. He barricaded himself in a bathroom, and police used pepper spray under the door to extract him.<\/p>\n
The incident led prosecutors to reopen a prior sexual assault case against Ibeabuchi from eight months earlier. While under house arrest, two more similar accusations surfaced, this time from Arizona. Ibeabuchi was deemed mentally unfit to stand trial and was committed to a psychiatric facility, where doctors diagnosed him with bipolar disorder. A judge ordered him to be medicated.<\/p>\n
After two and a half years, he was found competent and entered an Alford plea \u2014 maintaining innocence while acknowledging sufficient evidence to convict. Ibeabuchi received a sentence of two to 10 years for battery with intent, and three to 20 years for attempted sexual assault, served consecutively.<\/p>\n
From Ring To Cage<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people respected me in prison,\u201d Ibeabuchi claims.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was never threatened or anything, and didn\u2019t get into any fights. I wasn\u2019t allowed to. I guess what I learned was that I was a tougher person than I thought and that I can make it in my own way \u2014 but above all, I don\u2019t have to solicit prostitution in my life ever again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked if he regrets his actions. He replies that \u201csoliciting prostitution was legal in parts of Nevada, but not in Las Vegas or Clark County,\u201d and that he \u201cregretted negligence of the situation but not the morality.\u201d<\/p>\n
Further attempts at clarifying some of the finer details of Saturday\u2019s fight date are met by Ibeabuchi ceasing contact and blocking my number.<\/p>\n
Fight week in Lagos, Nigeria. Ibeabuchi said: \u201cI\u2019m glad to be back,\u201d he tells the camera. \u201cTo show my home country what I have become despite the absence. I\u2019m so grateful that I can come back to Nigeria and I am thankful for the Nigerian Boxing Board of Control for giving me this opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ibeabuchi is seen posing with fans outside of Lagos airport. He raises his fist, obliging to one of the sport\u2019s unwritten rituals.<\/p>\n
Wilson Aboyehimoe and Tobe Agbakoba, Ibeabuchi\u2019s boxing coach and fitness coach, respectively, are then given short segments to promote their charge. Both Aboyehimoe and Agbakoba sing the praises of Ibeabuchi and are unequivocal in their belief that he returns with a win.<\/p>\n
The fight has come and gone and the bottom-line is that Ibeabuchi is back in the boxing ring after 26 years with a third-round technical knockout victory over Idris Afinni in Lagos on Saturday, August 23, 2025.<\/p>\n
The undefeated former heavyweight contender, now 52, is looking to fight Oleksandr Usyk, the undisputed heavyweight champion.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Daniel Akinte Ike Ibeabuchi answers FaceTime with his nose pressed up against the phone screen. His trademark…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,44739,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-195565","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-ike-ibeabuchi","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}