Ike Ibeabuchi and the “Pseudomonarchia Daemonum”
By Chris Thompson-December 19, 2007 http://ringsidereport.com/rsr/news.php?readmore=2181

Well before knocking Chris Byrd out began serving as a litmus test for fighters hailing from countries that had previously made up the former Soviet Union, and before David Tua was relegated to the position of boxing’s Rancor (the Star Wars Monster who survives in Jabba’s pit by feasting on the weak castaways tossed his way) each man had suffered only one loss, and that was to a common opponent. Their conqueror was the Nigerian born Ike Ibeabuchi.

Tua was the first to succumb, losing a hotly contested unanimous decision in a bout that set a record for the most punches thrown in a heavyweight fight. The ultra-slick Byrd was next, knocked out in the fifth round by the original Nigerian Nightmare. From here, Ike seemed poised to take over the division once Lennox Lewis stepped down, or was forced down, from his throne as boxing’s penultimate Kingpin. All Ike needed was a date to be set for his coronation ceremony. That date never came.

Immediately after the fight with Tua, Ike began complaining of a terrible headache. This is not uncommon in our sport, nor could it be considered unusual because David Tua is a tremendous puncher and Ibeabuchi absorbed more than one flush blow to the head. Yet, due to these complaints and the intensity of the pain, Ike was taken directly to the hospital where he underwent several tests including an MRI. From what the latest advances in scientific technology could detect, there was nothing at all wrong with Ike. He showed no evidence of brain bleeds, or swelling. There was nothing to be found and he was sent home with a clean bill of health. This is the point in the story where things become a little strange.

After being released from the hospital, Ike began to swear that he was being plagued by demons; evil spirits that only he and his mother could see. Could this have been true? Was Ike Ibeabuchi destined to be the next Emily Rose? Had Belial or Astaroth or perhaps some other Devil from Johann Weir’s “Pseudomonarchia Daemonum” had taken up residence in Ibeabuchi’s soul. Or had Tua used some curse from his island birthplace to put a hex on the first man to defeat him? Or was it instead some latent form of schizophrenia, or yet another unfortunate case of Pugilistic Dementia? Personally, I lean toward the latter but whatever the disputed cause may be, the effects are indisputable. From that point forward, Ike Ibeabuchi changed for the worse.

Two months after defeating Tua, Ibeabuchi kidnapped the fifteen year-old son of an ex-girlfriend, placed the boy in the passenger sear of his car, then intentionally rammed his vehicle into a concrete pylon on interstate 35 just outside of Austin, Texas. The boy sustained injuries from which he will never recover. Ike walked away with only cuts and bruises. Though he was later charged with kidnapping and attempted murder, he was sentenced to only one-hundred and twenty days in jail the lesser charge of for wrongful imprisonment, but was forced to pay an undisclosed amount to the family. Then there was the incident of “Air-rage” when Ibeabuchi flipped out on a plane and had to be physically restrained by police officers. He also reportedly released his inner “demons” onto his sparring partners in the gym, going above and beyond what even the most intense pugilistic sparring session entails. This alone is enough to make loose-cannon Mike Tyson look like Mother Teresa, but it gets worse.

A few months after knocking out Chris Byrd, Ike was arrested for a final time in Las Vegas, Nevada, for attacking a prostitute in his suite at the Mirage. The woman asked for payment up front, a demand which sent Ibeabuchi into a rage that caused him to stuff her into a closet, then sexually assault and beat her. Afterwards he locked himself into the bathroom and engaged in a stand off with police that ended with tear gas and handcuffs. In 2001, he was convicted and sentenced to five to ten years in prison for the crime, and remains in Lovelock Correctional Facility in Nevada, having been denied parole in 2004, he is up for it again this month.

Ibeabuchi isn't the only professional prizefighter to turn cuckoo seemingly overnight and none of the others ever so so much as an imp. Unfortunately for the sport, Dementia Pugilistica, or Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), or even Punch-Drunk Syndrome if you prefer your diagnosis old school, has been shown to cause dementia, slowed mental function, Parkinsonism, seizures, balance issues, speech impediments, and sudden shifts in behavioral patterns. It is caused by repeated blows to the head and multiple concussions suffered over time and can take as long as twenty years to present itself in a fighter, though it usually develops at around six.

The condition has manifested itself in fighters such as Freddie Roach, Meldrick Taylor, Muhammad Ali, and Riddick Bowe to name only a few. Like Ibeabuchi, Bowe also felt the uncontrollable urge to abduct people, choosing to take his family on an involuntary joy ride across the country, this was shortly after he spontaneously decided to join the Marine Corps only to wash out before basic training had really even started. This is the main issue that anti-boxing organizations use to further their cause, and the one issue that the sport finds difficult to refute. However, despite what these crazies would have you believe, boxing isn't the only sport to have its athletes suffer from CTE.

Professional football players and even professional wrestlers are members of the club as well. Former Pittsburgh Steeler lineman Justin Strzelcyk, who died in a car crash three years ago, is the fourth NFL player to be found post-postmortem with this type of brain damage. Chris Benoit, the WWE superstar who murdered his young, mentally-ill son and wife before taking his own life earlier this year was also found to have signs of the trauma in his brain during autopsy. A recent article posted on Science Daily states, “Sport's Legacy Institutes's research has indicated there is a connection between the repeated head injuries suffered by many athletes involved in contact sports and an aggregation of abnormal Tau proteins in the brain, causing CTE. CTE's most common symptoms include depression, cognitive impairment, dementia, Parkinsonism and erratic behavior. Experts believe that CTE may have been a cause or contributing factor in the Benoit tragedy. While CTE has long been found in boxers, and more recently in NFL football players, the findings of CTE in Benoit suggest that athletes involved in other contact sports may also be at a heightened risk for this type of brain injury.” Does this mean that we must ban all contact sports? We should also make crossing the street illegal because I've hear that a few people have been injured by participating in that deadly endeavor.

All that aside, let's pretend for arguments sake that Ibeabuchi was never imprisoned; in fact let us pretend that he never committed this terrible crime and that his career continued on after he dropped Chris Byrd to the mat for the count. Would the lackluster heavyweight division be any different than it is today? Would it somehow be more exciting? Would it be any better? The answer to all three: I doubt it.

While the victories over Tua and Byrd reflect the high level of skill he so clearly possessed, and his young age of twenty-seven suggests the obvious potential for improvement and time to grow, his inability to defend against the sluggish Tua's telegraphed punches indicates a difficult road ahead in dealing with quicker handed power punchers. In boxing, each bout wears down your body, and sometimes your mind, a little more. And no matter which theory you subscribe to, the fact remains that Ibeabuchi was never mentally the same, or even psychologically stable, after the Tua fight. Even if he never raped anyone, he would remain a few burritos shy of a fiesta, and the more punches he was allowed to absorb, the worse his condition would have become. Unless you think he really was possessed, in which case short of a priest and some Holy water, there is not much that could be done.

Still, Ike probably would have gone on to defeat many other top contenders in his division and may have even stopped John Ruiz and Hasim Rahman from ever holding titles. The sport would have gotten much more coverage than it does now due to Ike's unpredictable shenanigans. But as the Hollywood Publicist Manifesto says, “Bad publicity trumps no publicity.” After stopping Rahman inside the distance, Ibeabuchi would set himself up for a showdown with Evander Holyfield in late 2000 or early 2001. Though I confess to not knowing enough about Ibeabuchi's skills to accurately predict a winner here, judging from what I do now about him and what the whole world knows about Holyfield, this one probably would have been a war for the ages. Given the fact that Tua was able to land so many good shots on Ike and not get him out of there, it doesn't seem likely that the smaller Holyfield would be able to either. Similarly, since Ike beat Chris Byrd soundly just as Byrd easily outpointed Holyfield, I would probably have to favor Ibeabuchi over the aged “Real Deal” at this point in time.

Supposing that Ike were to top Holyfield, he would have then set himself up in position to choose his own destiny by fighting either Lennox Lewis or hot young prospect Wladimir Klitschko. As most semi-intelligent fighters would do, Ike would follow the money and gravitate toward a showdown with Lewis. Even giving him every benefit of the doubt in terms of the potential Ibeabuchi exhibited in the early stages of his career and liberally factoring in experience and growth earned with his added fights, I still cannot manufacture a plausible enough scenario for me to be able to envision him defeating Lewis, the most underrated Champion since Larry Holmes.

Lewis would drum Ike over the course of twelve rounds and win a decision by the scores of 116-112, 115-113, and 117-111. This fight would also be both mens' last. Lewis would be off to retirement without facing Vitali Klitschko and the now long history of mental illness that had plagued Ike since the Tua fight would now only be much worse, having been compounded by the continuation of his career.

Part of being a “Great” boxer is not just possessing the in ring skills such as technique, hand speed, defense, agility, head movement, chin, etc., but also on having the intangibles such as heart, grit, confidence and so on to go along with them. Ike Ibeabuchi may have had every one of the former attributes in spades but in the latter department, in terms of mental stability, he was found wanting. Not to belittle the crimes that he was convicted of, or to in someway diminish the horrific event that woman suffered through, but the sport of boxing is lucky that he did not do something far worse; something similar to Chris Benoit's final act. Had this occurred, boxing's enemies would have been handed even more fodder for their ever growing cannons, and both fans and proponents of the sport might now find themselves with their backs against the ropes.