“YOU WALK in a room anywhere in the world as a boxer, you get respect. Even if they don’t like the sport, people know how hard it is. Now, walk in a room as a wrestler, they say ‘oh, that’s cool’, and they smile, and they think it’s fun. It’s not taken seriously, but it’s a very, very serious industry.”
Anthony Ogogo knows this better than most. He is currently a wrestler, but not only was he once a boxer, and a very good one, he also suffered a horrific boxing injury that cost him his sight in his left eye – so you know he’s being real when he talks of how real wrestling can be.
“I’ve had more concussions from wrestling than I ever got from boxing,” he continues. “There are constant aches and pains, and I’ve broken bones from wrestling, so it’s real.”
What’s not real about professional wrestling, of course, is its presentation as a sport. Results are predetermined, and to a degree the course of a match is rehearsed. That’s what real fighters dislike. But, again, Ogogo is a real fighter, so hear him out.
“Fighters see us pretending to do what they do, and that’s what they don’t like,” he says. “Yes, there’s hullabaloo, it masquerades as a combat sport, and people know it’s scripted. But what about theatre? You don’t go to watch Romeo & Juliet and walk out saying ‘I know she didn’t really die, so I don’t like it’.
“Wrestling is physical theatre. We tell stories with our bodies.”
Ogogo told a story with his body in the more ad-libbed world of boxing, too; a story without a happy ending.
A highly promising pro career began in 2013 after winning bronze at the 2012 Olympics. The Lowestoft middleweight surged to 11-0 and then, at some indefinable point, disaster struck. He carried a fractured eye socket into his October 2016 fight with Craig Cunningham, aware the injury existed, but not knowing when it had happened, and having been told it had healed enough to not pose any greater risk.
The doctors had got it wrong, and the bones around Ogogo’s left eye cracked anew under the impact of Cunningham’s fists.
“The eye socket holds your eye in place, so my eye dropped down and to the side. My opponent looked like he was up here” says Ogogo, motioning with his hand to a spot well above his head, “and over there”, tipping his hand to a diagonal.
Ogogo was stopped in the eighth round and, once it was confirmed his eye socket had been broken in two places, surgery was scheduled – which only worsened matters. He says an injection damaged a nerve and it was this, more than the fracture, that cost him his boxing career.
In all, Ogogo underwent nine eye surgeries before he conceded defeat.
“I genuinely thought I was going to come back,” he says. “But they damaged my eye more in the first surgery. The injury was recoverable, but the nerve damage wasn’t.”
The retirement announcement came in March 2019, but he was back in training later that year for a return to the ring – the wrestling ring this time. He debuted for American promotion All Elite Wrestling (AEW) in April 2021.
“I had my first match after just 50 training sessions,” he says. “But, one, I’d watched wrestling my whole life, so I ‘got it’; two, I was extremely athletic; and three, I was 30. Most people start wrestling when they’re teenagers, so I had to pick it up very quickly. The obsession I had for boxing, I put into a new career.”
Ogogo made a quick impression as ‘The Guv’nor’, performing on pay-per-view as soon as his third match, against AEW’s then-flagship star, Cody Rhodes. It had been a late start, but Ogogo adapted well, especially considering it was a craft very different to boxing.
“The training isn’t as hard as boxing, but the lifestyle is harder,” he says. “We wrestle twice a week and, as it’s episodic, you can’t pull out of matches. That’s why so many wrestlers die young, because of the injuries and always being on the road.”
Ogogo now lives in Atlanta, Georgia, and we speak as he is at home for a few days, having wrestled in Dallas the previous week and set for Chicago next week. “You miss a lot of birthdays, Christmases and weddings,” he says.
And there are no breaks in the ring, either. Pro wrestling matches are open-ended, with no rounds, meaning that while there might not be the unpredictability of genuine combat, a performance demands total concentration.
“Wrestling is unbelievably complex,” Ogogo says. “You’ve got the physical match, the performance aspect, and you’ve got to know where you are in the ring at all times; where the cameras are. You’ve got to be really fit. It’s a scary place to be when you’re gassed.
“You can’t just go through the moves, can’t just say the words; there has to be intense meaning in everything you do.
“It’s not as hard as boxing – boxing is the hardest sport in the world – but it’s very hard. It’s a very different kind of fitness.”
But Ogogo does bring some boxing influence to the role. “The punch is my finishing move,” he says. “I don’t throw a punch until it’s time to knock the guy out. I get out-wrestled, and then I win.
“I’ve been in a thousand fights, so I can tap into that [and make it look real]. My punches look like I’m killing you, but they’re not. The art is making it look like that”.
And yet, wrestling does come with risks, especially for someone who’s blind in one eye. The fact wrestling is not a real sport is what allows Ogogo to compete in it with such a handicap, but isn’t he worried about worsening his injury?
“Of course there’s a risk,” he says. “Crossing the road, there’s a risk. Eating food, there’s a risk of food poisoning. Are you going to stop eating? What’s the alternative? Sit at home and go on the dole?
“Yeah, I can’t do certain things, but generally I know what’s happening; what’s coming next [in a wrestling match]. I’ve been able to adapt. I’m still fit, strong and healthy, and I love performing. I get to out in front of thousands of fans every week; I get to tell stories every week. Wrestling is a second chance to live my childhood dreams.”
FIGHTING FIT
IF YOU’RE looking for help getting into shape, who better to advise you than someone who’s excelled in the equally demanding but very different disciplines of both boxing and pro wrestling?
Anthony Ogogo went from a middleweight boxer to a heavyweight wrestler in the 215-230lbs range, and in doing so navigated a dark emotional chapter in his life. He applies now what he learned then to his side gig as a fitness coach.
“When I retired from boxing, I lost everything – I lost my career, my vision, my identity as a boxer,” he says. “I didn’t want to be vulnerable again, so I set up Ogogo Fitness.
“I use the principles I learned as a boxer – boxers are extremely driven and resilient – to help people, generally men over 30, get back to what they want to be, by helping them drop fat and build muscle.
“As a boxer, it was all about me, but I’m at the stage of my life now that I want to give something back. Now, I improve people’s lives.
