Prospect focus: Efe ajagba

Well we'll see, the purpose of these threads is more to try and raise awareness of some of boxing up and comers and maybe try to drum up some enthusiasm in the jaded denizens of NSB so I've deliberately gone for a bit of hyperbole.. :lol1: Efe might fall at his first real test like Subriel (who I also did a thread on) but so what? Just a bit of fun and maybe trying to get dudes interested in some of these prospects instead of endlessly bickering over the established names. You got any prospects you'd like me to do a thread on? Lemme know and I'll see what I can rustle up, although likely not for a few weeks until after the schools go back. How about Arslanbek Makhmudov? Hes entering his prime now but he needs to step up the competition now. Subriel matias? Did he lose? I didnt even know that which is odd, considering im a boxing geek. What happened to the lad getting all gassed saying he was going to KO taylor? :lol1:

Takam might even beat him. Matey is stiff as a board, slow & has no defence. Well we'll see, the purpose of these threads is more to try and raise awareness of some of boxing up and comers and maybe try to drum up some enthusiasm in the jaded denizens of NSB so I've deliberately gone for a bit of hyperbole.. :lol1: Efe might fall at his first real test like Subriel (who I also did a thread on) but so what? Just a bit of fun and maybe trying to get dudes interested in some of these prospects instead of endlessly bickering over the established names. You got any prospects you'd like me to do a thread on? Lemme know and I'll see what I can rustle up, although likely not for a few weeks until after the schools go back.

Takam might even beat him. Matey is stiff as a board, slow & has no defence. Very likely. Ajagba was dropped by Kiladze, imagine what can bigger puncher do to him.

Takam might even beat him. Matey is stiff as a board, slow & has no defence.

According to his Instagram account, Efe has just signed with Top Rank. Bob putting together a fun stable of heavies.

I am not on a hype train, but I would love to see him fighting Breazeale, Martin, Helenius. But, he just signed Top rank, so it will probably be Takam or Kabayel. They probably were not going to pit him with those guys, and he needs fights/money and jumped ship. Boxers need to be active, and developing. Hopefully he would get a better opportunity to develop whilst with Rank.

I am not on a hype train, but I would love to see him fighting Breazeale, Martin, Helenius. But, he just signed Top rank, so it will probably be Takam or Kabayel.

Efe is a hyped bltch

Was going to make a thread about him. I'm on the hype train! Hoping he can make some real noise, and prove a legit threat to Fury down the road. Here's hoping.. :boxing: I got a list of about 20 prospects I'm planning to do threads on but I only got as far as Madrimov, Ajagba and Brownie before 'Rona hit and they just been sidelined since... turns out it's harder to find time in lockdown that you'd imagine, specially when you got kids underfoot.:lol1: Hopefully pick it back up again when the kids go back to school, planning on dudes like Simpson, Boots, Morrell, Melikuziev, Castro etc... watch this space...

Well it's been a coupla weeks and I thought it was about time we got to know some more prospects... after Mattias and Madrimov I had been planning to spread the love around by highlighting some US grown talent in Chris Colbert - had in fact started to pull some materials together, but given how long I left it and the action this weekend I decided to pull a quick switch and focus instead on Houston based Nigerian big man, Efe Ajagba - PBCs 2018 prospect of the year, who's in action tomorrrow night. EFE AJAGBA https://boxrec.com/media/images/thumb/2/26/EfeAjagba.jpg/200px-EfeAjagba.jpg Amateur (partial): https://boxrec.com/en/amateurboxer/804221 Professional: https://boxrec.com/en/proboxer/804221 https://photo.boxingscene.com/uploads/efe-ajagba_6.jpg https://www.premierboxingchampions.com/sites/default/files/EfeFeature.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efe_Ajagba http://ringstar.com/efe-ajabga/ https://www.premierboxingchampions.com/news/12-rounds-efe-ajagba The 25 year old Efe Ajagba was born in Ughelli, Nigeria and began boxing in 2011 after several years playing for his local football club (presumably in the youth leagues, though who knows, Efe is a very big boy :lol1:) . Coached to National and Continental success in the Amateurs by trainer Anthony Konyegwachie, Efe first garnered international attention by winning Bronze in the 2014 Commonwealth Games, following his success a year later by winning Gold in the 2015 African Games. Efe did participate in the Olympics at Rio but lost widely to veteran Kazakh Ivan Dychko (to be the subject of his own focus thread before too long) in the quarterfinals and made the choice to continue his career in the professional ranks. https://www.olympicchannel.com/en/video/detail/i-dychko-kaz-df-e-ajagba-ngr-3-0/ After signing with the newly formed Ringstar Sports under Richard Schaffer and relocating to Stafford Texas, the powerfully built 6’6” Ajagba debuted into the professional ranks on 30th July ‘17 against Tyrrell Anthony Herndon and embarked upon a blistering KO streak which saw him stop 4 of his first 5 opponents within the first round. Efe’s first real claim to boxing fame, however was something of a mixed blessing, on 24th August 2018 Ajagba became the quickest winner of a boxing match in history against arguably his toughest opponent to date, Curtis Harper. Unfortunately this had nothing to do with Efe’s prowess – unless you subscribe to Efe’s personal view that Curtis was simply to scared to fight him that is… More widely accepted is Harpers own explanation that he was protesting the handling of the fight contracts, though there remains some mystery surrounding the whole affair. https://www.espn.co.uk/boxing/story/_/id/24537651/why-did-curtis-harper-walk-ring-fight-efe-ajagba Moving swiftly on, Ajagba completed his 2018 campaign with two further 1st Round KOs over Nick Jones and Santino Turnbow bringing his ledger for the year to 5 and 0 all within 1 round and earning him the accolade of PBC Prospect of the Year for 2018: To kick off his 2019 Ajagba took on his first fighter of any substance: despite being faded and almost comically far past his best, the 46 year old Monsour arguably represented something of a step up for Efe, but the old contender proved simply unable to withstand the younger man’s ferocious speed and power. Efe fought 3 more times in 2019 beating Michael Wallisch by early KO in April but being taken the distance for the first time in his career by Ali Eren Demirezen in July, with the tough and previously unbeaten German based Turk providing a significant test and having more than a few moments of success himself. Highlights: Full: Ending 2019 with a 5th Round KO over Georgian stepping stone Iago Kiladze Efe strode into 2020 with an enviable and frightening 12(10) and 0 and setting him up for what we can only hope will be a bright and devastating future ahead… I for one am licking my chops at a potential confrontation with fellow Heavyweight propsect Daniel Dubois, at a very simliar stage in his development on the other side of the Atlantic, but it looks like Efe will be making a relatively slow start to 2020 by taking on US based Romanian one time contender Razvan Cojanu who’s biggest claim to fame is possibly surviving 12 rounds with Joe Parker. Only real intrigue here is whether Efe can stop Razvan in the first round to one-up Dubois’ second round stoppage of him a year ago. Thread to be updated with any news and results as and when, and please feel free to jump in with your own comments and observations gentlemen, the point of these prospect threads is as a resource that we can all share and use for our own research so the more input the better. Regards K To be continued…. Was going to make a thread about him. I'm on the hype train! Hoping he can make some real noise, and prove a legit threat to Fury down the road. Just updated my sig list, it's official!

Ajagba was already tested by low ranked gatekeeper Kiladze, he should fight next gatekeepers like Hammer, Wach, Rudenko..and finally maybe Hughie Fury. I don`t know, we live in the world where Charles Martin was world champ, so maybe Ajagba unifies division.

So, significant developments for Efe in the last few weeks, firstly inking a managerial / advisory agreement with Prince in early July: https://www.boxingscene.com/efe-ajagba-inks-advisory-pact-with-james-prince--150139 And then signing with Top Rank and leaving Shields for Koroma: https://www.boxingscene.com/forums/showthread.php?t=852629 There's some sense I guess since Al and PBC don't really hold many cards at HW except Wilder... let's hope Efe can get in the mix quickly. Too much action at HW right now for Efe to be waiting around or taking it too slow.:boxing:

He is in danger to become new Ugonoh. Fighting soft touches is not always good and even Kiladze dropped him. Ugonoh also looked great against club fighters, but first real puncher finished his career. Ajagba must face some punchers to get ready on bigger things.

I was on BoxingScene early on (I also had another username before this one) and I don't really remember people praising Fury in his first year as a pro. What I remember is a lot of people praising DAVID PRICE, who was seen as the next big star of the UK. Fury later admitted that he was undisciplined in his early career and didn't train much. DAVID HAYE also got a lot of hype in those days, and many saw him as the man who would conquer Wladimir Klitschko.

I expect there'll be a bit of factionalism whoever I do a thread on but I'm reckoning if I do my best to make sure all fanbases and nationalities are represented to a roughly equal degree and I politely ask folk to respect the purpose of the threads it should be possible to keep it to a minimum. Long term I'm hoping to rope in some other posters to help maintain the threads maybe dividing em regionally, but that's probably a way off yet. I'll be sure to try to remember to bump your threads with any information I stumble across

I like what Ronnie Shields is doing with him he is bringing him along at the right pace and not listening to fans and media and trying to rush him. Still have a lot of work to do but I was impressed with the better show of Defense and Head Movement! It lets you know that he actually LISTENS TO HIS TRAINER which is extremely important I noticed that too, he looked Shield directly in the eye and listening to everything he said in between rounds. I liked that too

I like what Ronnie Shields is doing with him he is bringing him along at the right pace and not listening to fans and media and trying to rush him. Still have a lot of work to do but I was impressed with the better show of Defense and Head Movement! It lets you know that he actually LISTENS TO HIS TRAINER which is extremely important

Dubois, Hrgovic, Yoka, and Ajagba are all good prospects. We can't be too critical at this stage. They're new! We gotta give 'em a chance to grow. For example, anyone here remember Tyson Fury's early fights? The guy looked terrible. He arguably lost to John McDermott, but look where he is today! It's all a matter of who's is watching I guess. I thought Fury looked like a future HW champ based on that first McDermott fight when a lot of other people felt he looked terrible. I'm surprised that a lot of people who watched that fight could not see that Fury's inside game was levels above most of the HW division even at that time. Especially given who was the king at the time, Wlad, who couldn't fight inside at all. Fury showed many different looks in that McDermott fight, whether it was close or not. I mean, he was big and oafish so maybe that put people off IDK, and he looked 30 when he was really only 24. As you said though, we never know who will turn out - working hard and taking the right path and Ajagba can turn himself into something. I hope he does, people seem to like him so it'll be fun to watch

I like Efe been following him like other here - but personally I don't consider him a prospect , he is more of a "project". Late comer, looks the part and all, but clearly he is a work in progress. Trying to take someone and turn him into a boxer - nothing wrong with that but I believe the ceiling is lower for these guys. For example, the guy who fought before him on the undercard, Frank Sanchez...although he's already 27, is a better prospect than Ajagba imo.

I can`t take him seriously before facing a true puncher.