Ochieng-Valentine: A Refreshing Change

[Wheelchair]

UNDER normal circumstances, when a young boxer embarks on the early stages of his professional career he learns his trade against a myriad of seasoned but limited journeymen and cheap slabs of meat from Eastern European nations. These routine bouts allow the fighter to learn on the job with a minimum of risk, and it isn’t usually until he’s had 10 or more fights on his slate that we see him stepped up into a meaningful test.

 

This Friday night, at the Goresbrook Leisure Centre in Dagenham, unbeaten middleweight prospects Erick “The Eagle” Ochieng and Curtis Valentine get put into their first evenly-matched contests ahead of schedule. But it isn’t a fringe contender or even a faded veteran that they will be proving their mettle against – it’s each other.

 

At this stage in their respective careers Stoke Newington’s Kenyan-born Ochieng and Curtis Valentine of Nottingham are relative unknowns in the sport. Ochieng has won three times since turning pro last November and scored one knockout, while Valentine is undefeated in two and, like his foe, has ended one fight inside the scheduled distance.

 

On paper it has all the hallmarks of a 50-50 fight and even the combatants themselves were a little shocked to be pitted against each other so soon.

 

“I was surprised to be put in with an unbeaten fighter like him when I saw all the things on the internet about him,” admitted 28-year-old Valentine, “but I think I’m ready for him anyway.

 

“I don’t know a lot about him. I’ve seen a couple of his fights on Youtube and I thought he looked alright but I’ve been training hard and I’m ready to go out and get a win.”

 

“It wasn’t really what I expected but I’m happy,” said Ochieng, 23. “I don’t really want to be put in with journeymen. The better people I fight now will show my potential. If you are protected you don’t get better, if you are challenged in your early fights it makes you a better fighter in the long run.

 

“From what I’ve heard he (Valentine) likes to slug and throw wide punches. My plan is box him and knock him out if the chance comes.”

 

While Messrs Valentine and Ochieng’s paths are set to converge at the same point on Friday evening, the place their respective boxing hopes started from are very different.

 

Valentine, a self-employed painter and decorator by day, practised karate from an early age until he was 20. Then he moved into full contact kickboxing before finally taking up the noble art at 24. In many respects boxing is little more than an extension to his long established love of combat sports.

 

While for Ochieng, the sweet science is more of a salvation. The Londoner admits that he wasn’t always a law abiding citizen in his youth and if it wasn’t for the guiding influence of the coaches at Haringay Boxing Club he may never have found his way onto the straight and narrow.

 

“Boxing really helped me to turn my life around,” Ochieng declared. “I came to England from Kenya when I was 13 and it was a shock of culture. I got influenced by peer pressure and I wanted to be like my friends, out late causing trouble.

 

“I used to fight a lot in the streets because I liked to fight. After school I used to stop people and take what ever they had I liked, I’d take their phone, their gold ring, whatever they had, so I was a bad boy in the street.

 

“I used to get arrested all the time so I was moved to a children’s home for a couple of months but when I got back home I still wanted to do my own thing so I got put into different foster homes. It turned out a good thing because the reason I started boxing was because the foster house I was sent to in Tottenham was close to a gym.

 

“What a lot of people don’t realise is that boxing helps with your discipline and that discipline spreads in your life. When I started training I never had time to hang around with the friends I used to have and that kept me out of trouble.”

 

Naturally both Valentine and Ochieng have ambitions that go far beyond Friday night’s action.

 

“I want to win this fight in style and then beat other fighters with unbeaten records,” stated Valentine, who trains under Tony Harris. “After a couple more fights I hope they can get me an Area title and my goal is to get the British title in the next couple of years.”

 

“My long term vision is to become world champion,” claimed Ochieng. “After 10 fights I’ll looking for the Southern Area title and then from there we’ll cut to the British or the Commonwealth and then the European and then to the world title.”

 

When the bell sounds to end their battle one man will have nudged a step closer to their dream.

 

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