Twenty-six years had come and gone since Ike Ibeabuchi last entered a boxing ring to compete as a professional, yet the time that passed somehow felt longer.
Ibeabuchi, a 6ft 2ins and thickly muscled 235-pounder from Isuochi, Nigeria, was a heavyweight threat in the 1990s for a whisper in time – just long enough to be considered a boogeyman in the division – and then he was gone. After toppling the 27-0 David Tua to prove his legitimacy and then knocking off future titleholder Chris Byrd, Ibeabuchi’s dark tendencies came home to roost. His behavior had turned from odd and erratic to illegal, and in 1999 he landed in prison for battery and attempted sexual assault. That was the purported end of his fighting career, and Ibeabuchi had either been locked up or marking time until heading back ever since.
But there he was on Saturday at Teslim Balogun Stadium in Surulere, Lagos – his matured frame still packed with power, his record still undefeated at 20-0 (15 KOs) – slipping back through the ropes. Having served his debt to society, Ibeabuchi was making his comeback at the age of 52. If the scenes weren’t surreal enough, fight organizers had scheduled him for 12 rounds with the 40-year-old Lagos local Idris Afinni, 18-8-2 (15 KOs). Thankfully, it never came to that, as Ibeabuchi quickly turned away Afinni, who said enough was enough after three rounds.
The purchase price of the fight stream was a cool $30, which may have amounted to a windfall for a man who had been cut off from his chosen profession for the better part of three decades. Perhaps making up for lost time, Ibeaubuchi immediately threw down the gauntlet after Saturday’s win, challenging two-time and current undisputed heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk. That fight contract would just about cover back pay for 26 years.
Ibeabuchi isn’t the first fighter to return to the ring in his sunset years – his heavyweight contemporaries Mike Tyson and Oliver McCall, to name just two, had both been active in the previous year – and he undoubtedly won’t be the last. Fight fans can pearl-clutch, criticize or ignore. What they can’t do is tell consenting adults of any age what to do with their time, bodies and remaining gray matter (that is a job, for better or worse, left to the fight commissions).
Maybe all that can be done is to wish “The President” good luck and good health. Oh, and stay out of trouble, young man.
Jason Langendorf is the former Boxing Editor of ESPN.com, was a contributor to Ringside Seat and the Queensberry Rules, and has written about boxing for Vice, The Guardian, Chicago Sun-Times and other publications. A member of the Boxing Writers Association of America, he can be found at LinkedIn and followed on X and Bluesky.
