Ekow Essuman Tried His Hand at Cricket, Rugby, Swimming, Football, and Basketball—But Chose the Toughest Sport of All!

EKOW ESSUMAN was a jack of all sports before finally mastering boxing.

Essuman – who is in action at the Co-op Live Arena in Manchester this weekend – is a former British and Commonwealth champion but the sweet science was not his first love.

Ekow Essuman was a jack of all sports before finally mastering boxing Credit: Getty

He grew up in Botswana where he played rugby and cricket before taking up swimming to help him lose weight.

Essuman told SunSport: “I swam for a team out in Botswana, my school team. We went to a lot of galas. I shifted a lot of weight doing that.

“And when I came to the UK in 2001 naturally into a new culture and whatnot, I started playing football.

“I was decent at that, started off as a defender ended up as a right wing scored a few goals but it wasn’t quite my thing I was being truthful.”

In fact, it was on the basketball that Essuman claims to have really found his passion.

He said: “I started playing to near England level and I wanted to play for the best team in Nottingham, which were a nationally renowned team, the Wildcats at Jesse Boots Centre in Nottingham.

“And I went for trials for that and they told me they wanted me to be more ambidextrous, so to dribble on my left hand just as well as my right hand and they wanted me to be fitter.”

Essuman was still struggling with his weight when he was advised by his friend who was in the military to take up boxing.

He revealed: “I took a year out of basketball or I planned a year out of basketball competing so I could just hone in on my skills, become more ambidextrous and get fitter.

“So I was working on my basketball skills and joined the boxing club and just fell in love with the sport.

“When I was younger, I used to stay up, have late nights with my dad watching Mike Tyson fight and we used to enjoy that.

“We’d shadowbox a bit, punch my dad’s fists get all the hype in and whatnot but I never really thought much to boxing aside from it was the first person to hit the other person with a hard shot would win.

Essuman has won the British and Commonwealth titles Credit: Getty

“So naturally, when I came to training in boxing, I thought the same, but then I learned that there’s so many intricacies in boxing, it’s like martial arts, boxing is an art.

“There’s no one way to do one specific strike or movement or anything and I just fell in love with the physical chess of boxing.”

What is most impressive is Essuman is only 5ft 10in but still impressed in

But by the time he had dropped the lbs and learned to use both his left and right hand – he was putting them to better use in the boxing gym.

Essuman still wants to become world champion Credit: SNS

He said: “They wanted me to be a point guard, which was probably the shortest player on a team but I mean, I fell into boxing and here I am.”

Essuman is not only a multi-talented sports star – he is also a brainiac.

He has Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing, Design & Communications from Nottingham Trent Uni – something his strict African parents made him prioritise.

Essuman said: “Boxing was never on my list of things to do and not necessarily sports perse.

“And so coming from the African upbringing that I came up from, which is really hard on education.

“My dad has a doctorate in education. My brother has a degree in microbiology and pharmacy.

“My mum owned a fashion and textiles business as well as like a hairdressing business back in Botswana, so I had a lot to live up to that.

“My parents were just really strict on getting your education in, getting your degrees and whatnot and then making your own way from there.

“So I went to college, got, three A levels, and then went to uni, did a degree in marketing, design and coms, and fell into a web development job being a junior web developer for AGA Rangemaster.

“I learned a lot on the job bt you can say I’m a bit of a nerd, because I’m really into computers and coding and all that.

“But yeah, boxing, where I can make use of my hands, I love it.”

Essuman has certainly made use of his hands winning 24 of his 22 bouts.

And he returns on Saturday night in Manchester – – against Jack Rafferty still desperate to keep his world title hopes alive.

He said: “It was never a “dream” because I’m going to make it happen.

“So I wouldn’t say it’s still the dream, it’s going to be achieved and yes, I’m going to do it.

“Delay is not denial, so I might be delayed and get there as fast as I wanted to get there, but I’m gonna get there.”