Ohara Davies
Boxer Ohara Davies talks about how boxing turned his life around
Boxer Ohara Davies, left, with friend and menot Lloyd Boateng, right
“Boxing changed my life in a massive way. It took me from a dark path I was on – with gang violence, court cases and criminal records – and it’s given me something positive,” says boxer Ohara Davies.
Ohara, who came out of retirement in June 2025 to fight Tanzanian Mohamed Aliseni in a nail-biting fight in Accra, Ghana, which saw him win, began his boxing journey in Hackney after a turbulent start in life.
Ohara says: “I’m born and raised in Hackney. My dad left when I was young and I was raised by my mum. She had some mental health issues so me and my brothers had to raise ourselves.
“A lot of the time my role models were the people I’d see on the streets, the people who sell drugs. We used to call them the ‘hustlers’. These were the people I looked up to – I wanted to be like that. Eventually these people became my idols.”
Thankfully, Ohara found a free boxing class at the Council-owned Concorde Youth Hub, on the Kingsmead Estate, before things got too out of hand on the streets – and the rest is history.
Ohara recalls: “I was in the youth club one day. I was on bail for Class A drugs, and they wanted to do me for attempted murder. I was 17 years old. These crimes I’d committed were very bad.
“They had a boxing coach, Tony Cesay, and there were around 30 of us there – all of them like me – who did crime. All the people from the hood. I’d already been in confrontation on the streets, I’d already experienced the worst.
“Now I had to learn how to control myself in the ring because the second you let your anger or emotions overwhelm you, you’ve lost the fight.
“Every week I’d go and hit the pads until Tony took my phone number and took me to an actual boxing gym. I remember the first time he said, ‘yes son, good shot’. This was the first time in my life that someone said I can do something good – I’d spent my whole life thinking I’m a failure. I wanted to do it again and I fell in love with the game.
“Because of that one person, who said let’s bring a boxing coach to the youth club, my life turned around. If you can replicate that, and do it in 10 youth clubs, there’d be so much change. That one person can become a seed in youth centres.”
Ohara, along with his friend and mentor Lloyd Boateng, are hoping to make these positive changes happen together.
Lloyd explains: “I am the founder of a business called Born 4 Sport, which empowers young people through sport. Ohara is a former coach and is now an ambassador. We use boxing as a tool to build awareness of the great powers that the mind holds.
“I believe that once you find something that you are passionate about nothing veers you from that. I think every young person has that within them.”
Ohara agrees. He says: “My future is to keep working with Lloyd and see how we can impact the lives of young people. We recently went to visit young offenders at Swinfen Hall Prison to talk about mentoring. What kind of world will the young people go out to if they don’t have anyone to mentor them when they’re in there?
“I’d like to find as many opportunities as I can to change young people’s lives in the way that my life was impacted. I feel really passionate about this.”