Ringside Report Looks Back at Boxer Anthony Ogogo – Boxing News

By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

I remember Anthony Ogogo’s 11-1, 7 KOs, last fight. I was at home watching the action in Birmingham. The pundits and the commentators and I were all in agreement. If Ogogo wished to be taken seriously, he had to do much better.

Little did we know during the fight and what happened thereafter was something that changed our view of him and his career. Instead of us looking at a fighter on the way up, here was a guy who had hit the brick wall which was now the end of his professional boxing career.

But what a career it had been and where he went next is damn impressive.

For Anthony Ogogo, Olympian and former professional boxer is now The Guv’nor in the professional Wrestling circuit. His amateur boxing pedigree was what heightened our expectations. One of the homegrown Olympians, who performed with such skill and delighted us all at the 2012
London Games, Ogogo was one of the medalists who we all admired. In 2004, in Texas, Ogogo had won a Junior Olympic gold, then in 2005 he beat Ruslan Derbenev in the final to take gold at the IABA cadet world championship, before in 2010, in Delhi representing England coming back with a silver when Northern Ireland’s Eamonn O’Kane beat him in the middleweight final. In 2004, he had also been voted the boxer of the tournament – no wonder people got excited by him.

Two years later he was one of Team GB that shone on the London Olympic stage.

London was serious pressure for all of Team GB. The UK had not had an Olympics since the 1940s. Coming out of the Second World War with hardly any money, the 1948 Olympiad was put together with the same spirt that had defeated Hitler – but it was not so much a celebration as an endurance. 2012 was our love letter to sport and a very different kind of Olympiad. British sport had been very hit and or miss throughout the decades, now we invited the world to see how far we had come.

And the best representatives of us were our athletes. Ogogo, former Youth Olympic Champion and silver medalist from the Commonwealth Games got there as our sole middleweight thanks to a great performance in April of 2012 in Turkey. The promise of his youth had been met by the reality of his adult self – he was ready for the Olympics at home.

His first fight in was the very first fight for a British boxer at the Games. The Dominican Republic’s Junior Castillo was beaten on points, so the potential banana skin was avoided.

But with that pressure intensified in his next fight – World Champion and world number one , Ukrainian, Evhen Khytrov – and the drama was massive. After the fight, they were tied. Scores were even. So, it was down to count-back, but it didn’t separate them either. So, judges had red or blue buttons to press to pick the most deserving: Ogogo got the majority win. He was now one fight away from a medal.

German Stefan Hartel entered the ring to face Ogogo in the quarter final but was dispatched on points meaning that a semi-final and at least bronze was going to be his. Unfortunately, he was not going to get anything better as he faced Brazilian, Esquiva Falcao Florentino, who was just too strong for Ogogo.

Coming out of the Olympics, alongside the likes of Anthony Joshua and Nicola Adams, great things were expected once more of the new guy in the middleweight division. But Ogogo’s career, already with plenty of narrative and drama, was going to bring even more twists and turns.

Professionally Ogogo turned over in 2013 and like many elite amateurs, much was expected of him in the professional sphere. Part of the reason behind that was obvious – he was someone in whom the British state had invested heavily. Olympians were treated well, given the best of training and produced as elite athletes in ways that those unable to become Olympians looked on with envy.

It was, for quite a few, payback time.

Mind you, that payback came with special rewards. Whilst elite athletes on any British Olympic program could enjoy financial support non-Olympians were scrambling to attain, the riches were specifically going on making people comfortable, well balanced and well trained. Nobody came out of the Olympic program as a wealthy individual like they could after a successful professional career.

Ogogo signed with Golden Boy; hype was heightened.

On his debut on the 27th of April in Sheffield, Ogogo faced Kieron Gray and stopped him in the second round – so far, so good. Ogogo showed his mettle when in the second round of his fight on the 18th of July 2015 in Halle against Ruslan Shchelev he dislocated his shoulder but fought on till the end – he won on points. Then on the 29th of May 2016, he came back again and stopped Gary Cooper in Glasgow in the third round.

Despite some ups and certainly significant downs, Ogogo was on the right pathway. Next the pressure increased as it was announced he would feature on the Anthoiny Joshua/ Dominic Breazeale title fight. The card was stacked that night and Ogogo was added as an attraction to heighten the hype even more. On the 25th of June 2016 Ogogo beat Frane Radnic who had a solid professional record after a first round knockdown saw Radnic refuse to come out for more punishment in the second. Then, in Berg, Ogogo faced Bronislav Kubin and on the 16th of July he managed another stoppage – in the second round after forcing Kubin to the canvass six times.

Ogogo was becoming the man who was hyped but was also a contender. The future looked very good indeed. And then…

On the 22nd of October, in Birmingham, England, Craig Cunningham came in and derailed Ogogo by fracturing Ogogo’s eye socket. The retirement from Ogogo’s corner by trainer Tony Sims felt premature from beyond the TV but was the portent of more alarming news to come. In the commentary on the night, the commentators were clearly worried that there was something wrong with Ogogo as he was not punching as he ought to, was getting constantly caught and looked much less than the assured fighter he had been. They were not wrong.

It was worse than a fractured eye socket. As a consequence of his career and after that fight, Ogogo was eventually registered blind, had his driving license taken off him and was advised by eye specialists to retire as the two surgeries he had undergone would not support him in his fighting career. On the 11th of March, 2015, Ogogo finally announced his retirement from the ring.

But Ogogo was far from finished in the public spotlight. In August 2015, he went into the British TV equivalent of Dancing With The Stars – Strictly Come Dancing – and ended up going out on week 3. He had become a doyenne of the reality TV series as he had been in Big Brother, appeared naked in a photoshoot for Attitude magazine, made adverts and also appeared on the reality diving show, Splash.

But it is now reality fused with entertainment that sees Anthony Ogogo appear for All Elite Wrestling as their first developmental wrestler – and continues to appear on their variety of platforms and the future looks pretty bright for him now. He also has his own podcast, getting Back Up which as a title in which to frame his entire career appears to be a little more than apt…

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