In a week where Donald Trump was making headlines around the world, the story of another come back ‘President’ raised a few quizzical eyebrows in the boxing business.
Ike ‘The President’ Ibeabuchi is the great “what if” heavyweight from the 1990s. In an era that saw heavyweight legends such as Lennox Lewis, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Riddick Bowe and Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko do their thing, some boxing insiders involved with him swear Ibeabuchi was the best of the lot.
He boxed from 1994 to 1999 and despite a limited amateur career carved out a flawless 20-0 (15) pro record before mental health and legal issues robbed us of his absolute sporting prime.
25 long years later, and BoxRec has 51-year-old Ibeabuchi, listed to fight the unheralded Ayman Farouk Abbas in Nigeria on December 7. That fight is far from certain to actually happen after listening to Ibeabuchi on YouTube over the last few days but given the mystique and fascination that still surrounds the hulking Nigerian, as sure as Tuesday follows Monday we will see him back in the ring again.
The Ring Magazine via Getty Images
Ibeabuchi could have won a world title, were it not for the chaos surrounding him. He was well schooled by trainer Curtis Cokes, had legitimate power in both hands and was underrated defensively. He was involved in a couple of classic heavyweight scraps in the 1990s, most notably against David Tua and Chris Byrd.
The venerable Cokes – from Dallas, Texas - was a huge influence on Ibeabuchi and moulded him into a truly fearsome operator. It was a strange union, pitting one of the sport’s most cerebral minds with one of boxing's most troubled. Cokes sadly passed away in 2020, but Ibeabuchi seems determined to finish what they started in the 1990s.
Remembering the fistic mayhem of that Tua fight still gives me goosebumps. There have been better examples of skill, but no better exhibition of heavyweight slugging than the one those two put on in Sacramento. Just two immovable objects trying to blast each other into oblivion for 12 hard rounds.
The bout broke the world record for the number of punches thrown in a heavyweight fight – they threw an astonishing 1,730 punches between them – and after Ike got his hand raised the world was his oyster.
Alas, life isn’t all caviar and water slides. Rumours began to circulate regarding Ibeabuchi’s mental state, and while ‘The President’ kept winning he was becoming more and more erratic, and the legal issues began to mount.
A heavyweight terror unravelling fast
Talent and physical prowess are great starting points, but hard work, discipline and perseverance is the true catalyst that turns unrealised potential into life-changing success.
Ibeabuchi had the physical tools to go all the way and become a heavyweight terror, but by the time he met Chris Byrd in March 1999 he was unravelling fast.
Cerdric Kushner was the promoter that put on Ibeabuchi vs. Byrd, and things were evidently so bad that Kushner’s assistant Mitch Winston wagered $22,000 on Ibeabuchi to lose, having witnessed the boxer’s mental deterioration in the lead up to the fight.
Despite the inner turmoil, Ike blitzed Byrd inside five rounds and the manner in which he got rid of Byrd – who would later reign twice as world heavyweight champion himself - was truly devastating. Ironically that fight – screened live on HBO - nearly never happened as the story goes Ibeabuchi was refusing to leave the changing room until someone from his team brought him a Snickers bar.
Following the Byrd blowout, Ibeabuchi was ranked No. 4 at heavyweight by Ring Magazine in 1999 but has not boxed since and spent the majority of the last 25 years in a prison cell.
He’s out now, and inevitably all the talk is of a comeback. It’s going to be hard for Ibeabuchi, a fighter chasing a young man’s dream on middle aged legs.
The saddest thing in life is wasted talent. And in the crazy old world of boxing, Ike somehow fulfilling his destiny and getting a world title shot after all that has gone before would be one of the craziest tales of all.
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