Ike Ibeabuchi – the heartbreaking story of world boxing champion whose greatness was tamed by the U.S

Ike Ibeabuchi ruled the boxing world in the 1990s with his intimidating physique, an unusual speed and power. He knocked out world champions, Olympic medalists and was on his way to global stardom, close to becoming one of the greatest boxers to ever come out of Africa.

He remains unbeaten up to this day, with 15 knockouts from 20 wins. Prospective opponents dread him. The media crowned him ‘Boxing’s Most Dangerous Man’. By 1997, pundits had begun to compare him to boxing greats like Mike Tyson and George Foreman while others tipped him as an undisputable champion and the next big name to rule the Boxing world.

Well, all these never happened, and no he is not dead neither has he announced his retirement from boxing.

Ibeabuchi has been in incarceration for over 20 years in the United States. 

This is the story of how ‘The President’, as Ibeabuchi is fondly called, has remained in jail, in and out of six U.S prisons since fighting his last professional match in 1999.

Now 47, he moved to the U.S. in 1993 at the age of 19, settling in Dallas, Texas with his mother Patricia (who died of heart attack in 2014).

Less than two years after arriving in the U.S, he made his professional boxing debut on October 13, 1994, and in two and a half years he announced his greatness to the world with an unexpected win over David Tua, a New Zealand boxer. In the 1997 fight, Ibeabuchi was completely unknown to almost everyone in boxing. Tua on the other hand was the favourite: he was undefeated with a record of 27-0, 23 knockouts, and was being hyped as the next Mike Tyson.

Though regarded as the underdog, when Ibeabuchi met Tua at the Arco Arena in California in June 1997, pundits said he got out to an insanely fast start never seen before in the history of boxing. According to CompuBox, he threw 91 punches in round one, another 91 in round two, and 95 in round three. A Home Box Office (HBO) documentary described the stats as obscene numbers for a heavyweight. By the final bell, Ibeabuchi and Tua combined had thrown 1,730 punches in 12 rounds, breaking the heavyweight record earlier set by Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, who jointly threw 1,591 punches in 14 rounds. Ibeabuchi threw 975 punches, the most ever by a single heavyweight in a 12-round fight at the time. 

The fight made him a global phenomenon.

Two months after the fight, Ibeabuchi’s late promoter Cedric Kushner and other members of his crew said the boxer started showing signs of a mental health crisis which they claimed was responsible for his series of run-ins with the law.

He was first arrested for kidnapping the teenage son of his girlfriend and badly injuring the boy by overspeeding. There was widespread belief that Ibeabuchi was trying to kill himself and he was sentenced to three months in jail for the action.

“There was definitely a paranoia with Ike. If he went down the wrong path mentally, he was very untrustworthy of people, and something would occasionally scare him,” said Greg Juckett, a former publicist with Cedric Kushner Promotions.

When he returned to the boxing ring on July 9, 1998, after three months in jail, he took on Tim Ray in Louisiana and it was like he never left the ring. He knocked out Ray in the first-round. He followed this with a ninth-round KO win two months later over Everton Davis.

With 19-0 wins and 14 knockouts, Ibeabuchi faced Chris Byrd who was widely regarded as the purest boxer in the heavyweight division with 26-0. As the fight neared, Ibeabuchi’s promoter said they had trouble getting him on a plane from Texas to Washington because he told them there were demons and evil spirits on the plane.

“Ike finally got a later flight that, I guess, didn’t have demons on it,” Eric Bottjer, a member of the Kushner Promotions, told HBO.

Before then, an American boxing promoter and TV producer, Lou DiBella, said Ibeabuchi’s mother had also blamed ‘evil spirit’ as the reason for her son’s weird actions.

In DiBella’s words, “I’ll never forget, I was with Cedric, we were doing a Boxing After Dark, and Ibeabuchi’s mother was staying at the hotel with him, she said, ‘Ike’s not going to fight, there are evil spirits in the hotel. And they’re coming in through the air conditioning system.’ So in typical Cedric Kushner fashion, he said, ‘Ma’am, turn off the air conditioning.’”

Ibeabuchi won the fight against Byrd and it was his last night before a cheering crowd of supporters. 

How he got to jail:

Four months after his big win over Byrd, he was arrested following allegation of an attempted sexual assault on a stripper in Las Vegas in 1999. 

On July 22, 1999, he was arrested in Las Vegas over alleged sexual assault attempt on a 21-year-old stripper. The lady told police Ibeabuchi tried to rape her in the closet when she asked for money up front. He denied the accusations and was initially released and placed under house arrest. Things, however, started falling apart when another case of alleged sexual assault was opened against him. It was said to have happened eight months earlier at another hotel. Amid concerns over his mental state, Ibeabuchi was examined by medical experts before proceeding for his hearing. They concluded he was not fit to stand trial on the grounds he suffered from bipolar disorder and was transferred to a state-owned medical facility where he was treated for eight months.

On November 8, 2001 he submitted an Alford plea – in American law it means pleading guilty without admitting to committing the crime on the basis that the evidence is unfavourable against the defendant. Ibeabuchi was sentenced to 2 to 10 years for battery with intent to commit crime and 3 to 20 years for attempted sexual assault, with the sentences to be served consecutively. 

His sentence sparked outrage in the boxing world. Pundits and boxing fans raised questions. They wondered why Mike Tyson who was convicted of rape in 1992 was sent to six years in jail and eventually spent three and a half years in prison while Ibeabuchi convicted for attempted sexual assault was slammed with jail terms that could end his career.

He completed his jail terms and was released in 2014 from Nevada prison but it is safe to say he never regained freedom. He was picked up again two years after and the charges against him keep piling. Whenever he is close to freedom, reports say the government of Arizona in the U.S finds a way to dig up unknown charges to pin on his neck and keep him behind bars, faraway from the boxing ring.

He told The Nation in 2019 that he believes there are some forces that “seemed to be looking for any reason to keep me away from the ring.”

Could his mother be right that he was a victim of conspiracy?

Patricia, who made a mockery of the mental health crisis talks, claimed her son was a victim of the conspiracy of a boxing cabal.In a letter, six years after the verdict against her son, she wrote: “These promoters went so far as to fly and bring false charges against Ike in Gilbert and Scottsdale while he lived with me in the same house, by paying a couple of women to accuse him of attempted kidnapping and sexual assault.”

Patricia added: “The police investigated these charges and threw them out because there was no basis for these charges against him. Since they did not achieve their aim here they followed him to Las Vegas and repeated the same charges, which has kept Ike in jail.”

On July 22, 1999 when Ibeabuchi was arrested, he was reportedly in Las Vegas being courted by Don King, one of the biggest American boxing promoters. 

Despite his ordeal, by the time he was released in 2014, Ibeabuchi had earned three associate degrees and certificates and managed to keep fit  while in prison. He made moves to return to the ring, signed on with Michael Koncz, Manny Pacquiao’s advisor, but he was picked up again.

His nephew John Uzo told The Nation in 2019 that: “After he was released in 2014, U.S Immigration detained him because he was yet to be issued his green card.

“By 2016, when he got his green card and was released, he was again picked up and even the family did not know where they were holding him. At a point we thought he was dead.”

Like Ibeabuchi’s mother, some pundits also hold the belief that ‘The President’s’ rearrest while preparing for a return to boxing is an indication that there was a conspiracy against his boxing career.

“I want to think there are forces that did not want me in the U.S,” Ibeabuchi said in 2019. “In 2003, Arizona had issued a grand jury warrant to extradite me, and it was illegal because Nevada had to dispose of its own matters before Arizona could file for extradition. Arizona was my home state of residence when I got arrested in Nevada. I hired an attorney who looked at the case and we won.”

Ike Ibeabuchi’s projected release date was September 23, 2020 by the Arizona Department of Corrections. However, he has not yet been released, Robert Brizel, Head Boxing correspondent at Real Combat Media, in the U.S told Neusroom in an email.

“Owing to Covid-19, Ibeabuchi might refuse his own release until the health crisis ends, or he might have his release delayed as the penal system might be holding its prisoners for the moment,” the boxing correspondent added.

Brizel, who has been advocating for Ibeabuchi’s release, said other than refusing a job in January 2020, Ibeabuchi has been well behaved for the last 18 months in prison.

The Arizona Department of Corrections is yet to respond to an email from Neusroom seeking information on Ibeabuchi’s release date.

After two decades behind bars, Ibeabuchi may be released this year and he is not ruling out chances of returning to the boxing ring at age 47.

 

• This story was first published in October 2020. Neusroom gathered that Ibeabuchi was released from U.S Prison on November 4, 2020.