James Oyebola

Jul 31 2007 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post

PROFESSIONAL boxers form a close, loyal and protective community, always looking after their own.

So the anger and distress has been real and raw following the death of James Oyebola, a former British heavyweight champion, shot outside a London club.

Despite his triumph, Oyebola was never a fashionable figure, but there was admiration for his guts and determination in making a career for himself.

Naturally, much of the publicity about Oyebola concentrated on his 6ft 9ins, 17-stone build. His greatest asset was his reach and he made the best of what God had made him, claiming the British title in November, 1994, when he knocked out Clifton Mitchell in the fourth round at Cardiff.

Oyebola was born in Lagos, Nigeria, leaving the country with his parents when he was six, settling as a naturalised Briton in Paddington, London.

He turned professional after success as an amateur. In 1986, he had won the Amateur Boxing Association’s super-heavyweight crown against Gary McCrory, retaining it with a win over John Shakespeare. He also won a bronze medal for England at the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh. Lennox Lewis, who beat Oyebola with a second-round stoppage, won the gold.

The term “gentle giant” is a boxing cliché used to describe men of impeccable manners outside the ring and, of course, it was applied to Oyebola, though in the normal run of events you wouldn’t wish to cross him.

His billing as “Big Bad” was not particularly helpful to his chances of gaining lucrative spin-off deals from his career.

Before his British triumph, he had brushed the edges of world boxing with a fifth-round victory over Scott Welsh, in Atlantic City, to take the World Boxing Council international title.

But, in 1995, he lost his British crown to Welsh and when he lost another bruising encounter to Julius Frances the following year, he retired from boxing, having won 18 of his 23 pro fights.

After that he worked as a doorman, but had recently returned to prominence by managing Ajose Olusegun, the Commonwealth light welterweight champion.

At the time of his death from gunshot wounds, Oyebola had been intending to travel to Ghana to receive an award for his services to African boxing.

He is survived by his partner and two children.

James Oyebola, boxer; born July 10, 1961, died July 27, 2007.