Oure: From destroyer in ring to provider of good health

The name Evans Ashira Oure may not ring bells to many Kenyans especially those born after 1990 or those who follow little of boxing. Here is a man who has done so much for this country in boxing, winning many titles, locally and abroad, and still has a lot to offer to the sport he loves and the general public.

Born in 1969, Oure aka the African Warrior, has a rich history in amateur and professional boxing.

In his early days as an amateur, he won many local tournaments before being crowned light welter national champion in 1993, a throne he held until 1998.

Widely travelled, he fought in Uganda, Zimbabwe, Mauritius, Seychelles, United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden and Thailand, just to mention a few, while representing Kenya.

He won a silver medal during the All Africa Games of 1995 and was among the chosen few who represented Kenya and Africa at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, United States of America.

The following year, he crowned his amateur boxing career by winning light welter gold medal at the Commonwealth Boxing Championship in Mabutho, South Africa. Being a six-time Kenyan champion in three weight divisions - light welter, welter and light middle - and having had 130 fights, with 115 wins, there was nothing else left to prove in his amateur career and he made the natural transition to the paid ranks.

In 1998, Oure turned professional in Denmark where he won International Boxing Federation (IBF) intercontinental title in his ninth fight. He defended the title in his 15th fight which was followed by two more titles in the same night - World Boxing Association (WBA) International and International Boxing Association (IBA) world titles in middleweight.

Some of the big names in boxing who have held those titles include Americans George Foreman, Roy Jones Junior, James Toney, Fernando Vargas and Shane Mosley, Italian, Arturo Gatti, Mikkle Kesler of Denmark and Mexican-America Oscar Dela Hoya.

In 2002, Oure signed a promotional contract with the legendary boxing promoter American Don King, regarded by many as the greatest in the field of selling boxing bouts - having promoted literally the best of the best in the blue riband of the sport - heavyweights, namely Muhammad Ali, Larry Holmes and Mike Tyson.

MOVED UP

For the six years he was under Don King, Oure was featured in some of the best boxing venues in the world including Caesars Palace in Las Vegas and Madison Square Garden in New York. He ended the career of Quiton Smith, one of the most feared American middleweight boxers.

"After that great performance against Smith, I moved up in weight in 2005 to super middleweight and challenged the future Hall of Fame and unbeaten Joe Calzaghe for WBO Championship of the world at Cardiff Stadium in the United Kingdom. At that time, I remember I was suffering from a torn shoulder ligament and lost on points. Not a bad show given the pain I was going through during the fight coupled with the fact that I was also fighting in a weight class two divisions higher than my natural weight as a light middleweight,” he says.

By the time he was fighting Calzaghe, Oure was based in Denmark trying to see which side in boxing and beyond his bread would be well buttered.

Much as he loved working under Don King, not everything went as he had expected. The fact that he had beaten the great Smith did not mean smooth sailing while being in America.

He says his promoters started frustrating him by denying him big fights with established boxers like Mayoga and Cory Spinks among many others.

According to Oure, managers of the other fighters also blocked ways that would have seen him fight their fighters in title duels.

In Oure’s word, they feared him.

May be they had seen the hidden power of the African Warrior and decided to frustrate him as had been done to Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight boxing champion about 100 years ago.

With this kind of frustration, Oure says he left Don King Production and moved back to Europe and settled in the Nordic country.

As an accomplished professional boxer, Oure has held many titles including IBF Intercontinental light middleweight (1999), WBA International middleweight (2001), IBA middleweight champion of the World (2001) and IBA light middleweight champion of the World (2007).

Oure, no doubt, remains one of the best professional boxers to come from Kenya and is one of the most accomplished professional fighters in his adopted home-country Denmark. This is the same country where Ayub Kalule of Uganda, one of the best African professional boxers lived.

Alongside his boxing career, Oure completed personal trainer courses in the United States. He worked as a personal trainer in both America and Denmark. He has experience in working with anyone in business or other professionals wanting to get fit or stay fit while balancing a busy schedule.

He deals with overweight children and people with various health issues such as obesity, hypertension or high cholesterol.

Having worked with some of the best boxing and conditioning trainers in the world, like those at Floyd Mayweather’s camp at Las Vegas and Nevada and Kettle & Conditioning at House of Pain at Philadelphia, USA, Oure has gained a lot of experience over the years on physical wellbeing.

He knows from his own body how fitness is best obtained with a combination of training and eating regiments.

Oure has many major projects and plans for his motherland Kenya after completing 10 years as a professional boxer.

He has assisted in setting up a number of projects to assist the youth.

In 2008, he started African Warrior Boxing Club in Mombasa with one of his former Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) boxing club mate, Julius Onyango that has done a tremendous job helping kids from the streets build their dreams.

Says Oure: “I am in the final stages of organising a boxing event in March 2018 in Kenya to raise funds to build an academy for the club where the kids can get some education. My major concern is to get the youth off the streets, build hope in them to be respected citizens.”

Asked what he thinks are his major achievements as a boxer, Oure says being champion of the world twice, successively moving to businesses that touch on boxing and creating healthy lifestyle and mind set for business people.

He has friends like Evander Holyfield, a former five-time world heavyweight boxing champion, and Tim Weatherspoon, a two-time heavyweight champion of the world, both from the United States.

The duo have helped him promote his fitness company.

Another friend and regular visitor to his gym, who also helps in in promotion of Oure’s business is Danish boxing hero Mikkel Kesler.

Oure also trains high profile business persons from Europe.

To get into the nitty-gritty of his new trade, Oure does education boxing training project for consistent mind set and focus.

Internationally, he has been part of a team that has done a project with Greenland education system which has achieved 80 per cent success.

He has also successfully done chess boxing project for school education system at Hellerup where he lives.

Two years ago, he started RetinaLyze Kenya Limited, a company that uses software to screen eyes to prevent blindness caused by diabetic retinopathy. For diabetes and high blood pressure patients, Oure says those in Kenya who have known how his firm works now have access to a technology that any citizen can afford.

Annual screening would cost between Sh2,000 and Sh3,000 excluding medicine while with software it will take 30 seconds to screen and will cost between Sh400 and Sh600 for both eyes.

Oure says the idea of bringing RetinaLyze software system in Kenya is to drastically reduce the costs and ensure as many patients as possible are helped to contain the condition at an early stages.

The system is present in 35 countries around the world and is patented in USA, Japan, China, India and Europe.

That is definitely a major step forward for a Kenyan abroad to remember his motherland and be part of nation building in an area that impacts heavily in our quality of life - good health.

On the state of boxing in Kenya, Oure says he thinks the game’s officials are doing their best given that local fights are not exposed much to international tournaments.

“I was in Hamburg watching our team at the world championship last year and I noted lack of preparation in the team. The technical bench needs to engage strong and young experienced former boxers the likes of Omar Kasongo and Veldez Ochieng. Young upcoming boxers can be given many tournaments both locally and abroad. Jobs should be created for the youth by companies as it used to be in the past.”