How Good was Heavyweight Ike Ibeabuchi?
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By Rich “Lite It Up” Lopez
Today in boxing there is a lot of attention in the heavyweight division. With top fighters like Deontay Wilder, Anthony Joshua, Luis Ortiz, Jarrell Miller, Joseph Parker and Dillian Whyte facing each other, this has brought back excitement to the Heavyweight division. This brought me back to the mid to late 90’s, when the heavyweight division was exciting as well. Mike Tyson and Riddick Bowe were at the end of their careers. Lennox Lewis was king of the heavyweight division. Evander Holyfield was still hanging in there as a belt holder. Then we had new young heavyweights looking to take over the division such as; David Tua, Andrew Golota, John Ruiz, Michael Grant, Shannon Briggs, and Chris Byrd, just to name a few. There was also another fighter that belonged in the mix of the new young heavyweights during that time. That fighter was known as Ike Ibeabuchi.
Ike Ibeabuchi, also known as The President, was a fighter from Nigeria. He started his professional career in 1994 and moved to Dallas, Texas. He was being trained under former World Welterweight Champion Curtis Cokes. Ibeabuchi was physically strong and had scary punching power. From 1994-1997, Ibeabuchi stopped 12 of his 16 opponents and was looking to be a threat in the heavyweight division. Still, at that point, we did not know how good he really was. That would change on June 6th, 1997, when Ibeabuchi stepped it up and fought powerhouse David Tua at the Acro Arena in Sacramento, California. David Tua was a knockout artist and had already knocked out John Ruiz, Darroll Wilson, David Izon, and Oleg Maskaev, who were all solid heavyweights at that time. Tua was the favorite in this fight and rightfully so. Both Tua and Ibeabuchi were 24 years old, in their prime, and undefeated. Both fighters had power and only knew one way to fight. That was to come forward and go for the knockout.
The fight lived up to the hype and it was one of the best heavyweight fights I have ever witnessed. Both men exchanged hard blows to each other and neither fighter stepped back. It was amazing to see two big men taking the kind of shots that they did. At the end, the fight set the Compubox record for the most punches thrown in a heavyweight fight. A total of 1,730 punches were thrown by both men.
Ibeabuchi set the individual record with punches thrown by a heavyweight. The fight was close and Ibeabuchi won the fight by unanimous decision over 12 rounds. What did this mean? It showed that Ibeabuchi was the real deal and was a top player in the division. He also showed that he had a good chin, which is something that most great fighters have. To take shots from a prime David Tua is impressive.
Then the trouble started for “The President”.
Ibeabuchi was inactive due to legal troubles and this would be only the start of his downward spiral. There was also reports of him having a mental illness. He was jailed for 3 months for kidnapping his teenage son and badly injuring the boy after driving into a freeway overpass.
After about a year off the ring, Ibeabuchi was back in the ring with a second chance in 1998. He came back with two stoppage victories over journeymen fighters and would land another big fight the following year on March 20th 1999. He would fight the undefeated Chris Byrd who was the favorite to win. Byrd was one of the most elusive and defensive fighters in the game at that time. From rounds 1-4, it was a tactical matchup, with Byrd ahead in the fight. Then all of sudden in the 5th round, while Byrd was against the ropes, Ibeabuchi landed a monstrous left hook that dropped Byrd. Byrd got up but went down again as he was out of it. As Ibeabuchi went to finish the fight with a series of hooks, the ref stopped the fight. This would be the signature win that Ibeabuchi needed and he put the heavyweight division on notice.
However though, this would be the last time we would see Ibeabuchi in the ring.
Once again, the demons got the better of The President. In July of 1999, four months after the huge win over Byrd, Ibeabuchi was arrested for a sexual assault incident in Las Vegas. Two years and a half later, Ibeabuchi would be sentenced to two to ten years for battery with intent to commit a crime and a three to twenty years for attempted sexual assault. He completed his sentence in 2014, but was not a free man until 2015 after he was released by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Ike was 42 years old and there was talks of a comeback. But in 2016, Ibeabuchi got arrested in Arizona for a probation violation and remains on a lifetime probation in the state of Arizona. His Arizona release date is on September 25th, 2019. At this stage, I don’t think any comeback will happen at all.
So, with that being said, had Ibeabuchi been in the right mind, how far would he have gone in the heavyweight division? In my opinion, he was one of the most impressive heavyweights I have seen at that time. I can guarantee he would have become a belt holder. I mean if Hasim Rahman and John Ruiz did it, I’m sure Ibeabuchi would of as well. Would he have dethroned Lennox Lewis if they would have fought? I think Lewis still might have beaten him, but Ike would have just needed one punch to end it.
At the end, Ike Ibeabuchi would be one of the biggest “What if’s” in boxing.
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