Trading a journalism dream for boxing: How Sena Agbeko achieved the unthinkable

To many in Ghana, trading your professional goals for a sporting career can be detrimental, but Sena Agbeko made it pay off.

Super middleweight Agbeko, who had to deal with the intensity of combining boxing and school, used five years for a four-year Bachelors in Communication Studies at the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ). According to him, he had to give up his dream of becoming a broadcast journalist to follow a passion he developed later on in life.

“Honestly, my first love was to be a lawyer but then at the time I was worried more about the cost of tuition for that,” Agbeko told BoxingScene. “So, instead of going to law school, I was like, I’m just going to do communications because I’ve always wanted to become a broadcast journalist. 

“It’s not something that you throw away. It’s something that I could’ve pursued. I still can pursue it if I want to but boxing is one of those things that requires 100% focus and attention. And you know the nature of journalism. Like, you have to, whether you’re doing eight hours or you go into sites to record and interview people and I can’t do that with boxing. It would’ve been impossible and I don’t think I would’ve made it this far in boxing.” 

Boxing came to Agbeko (28-4, 22 KOs) as a surprise because the 32-year-old was not a fan of fighting growing up at Dzorwulu, a suburb of Accra. He drew closer to the fistic sport in 2007 when he watched Floyd Mayweather Jr and Oscar De La Hoya contest the WBC junior middleweight championship. A year later, he had the chance to watch the Ghana boxing team, Black Bombers, compete at the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

“So, I think the Olympics that year ended in August and then shortly after, I started boxing in 2008,” Agbeko narrated. “Those two events just gave me the desire to pursue boxing.” 

Agbeko’s first point of getting closer to boxing was just minutes away from his home where he shared close proximity with Ambassador Ray Quarcoo – a boxing administrator and former Ghana Amateur Boxing Federation (GABF) president. Quarcoo had put up a boxing gym in his home closer to where Agbeko lived. 

A daring Agbeko walked up to Quarcoo’s home and told him he was interested in pursuing the sport – a move which forced Quarcoo to set up a ring to enable Agbeko and one other boxer to commence training. 

“It was just me and him and then he hired a coach from Bukom called Suleman Martey who I still work with now. He’s in Ghana and he was my first coach. When he was brought on, he was just hired to train us and I remember it was a long, hard six months where I trained and I kept begging him to let me fight.

“He kept telling me I wasn’t ready. And then eventually, he had a bunch of the guys from the gym go fight in the Great Accra League at the time on Friday night fights.”

Agbeko spent three years as an amateur fighter, winning 60 fights and losing nine from 2008 to 2011. His impressive record landed him a place in the Ghana boxing team and was part of the World Youth Championships in Baku, Azerbaijan. However, Agbeko’s hope of competing at the championship was dashed.

“It was back in 2010 and we went to the World Youth Championships in Azerbaijan. I was ready to take part in the tournament but I ended up getting sick anyway so I really wasn’t able to compete.”

In 2011, Agbeko was prevented from representing Ghana at the Olympics qualifiers for the 2012 games in London. His spot at the Olympics qualifiers was offered to a more experienced fighter despite beating him in a justify-your-inclusion tournament. 

Agbeko said Kwasi Ofori Asare, trainer of Ghana boxing team, preferred to use a fighter that had just won gold at a West African Regional boxing tournament because he felt the fighter had better chances of qualifying to the Olympics. The disappointment forced Agbeko to turn pro. 

“I competed at the African Gloves Championship and ended up winning a gold medal. At the time, the owner of Kpando Heart of Lions (soccer club in Ghana), Victor Ahiakpor spotted me during that tournament and decided to manage me if I wanted to go pro. So, I said yes and then he helped me to go pro, and that’s how it’s been since then.”

Agbeko made his pro debut on June 18, 2011 in a second round TKO win over Cudjoe Darah at Lebanon House in Accra. He went undefeated in his first 15 bouts in Ghana before moving to the US in 2014 with the aid of US-based Ghanaian manager Alex Kotey.

Soon, Agbeko fell out with Kotey and walked away before making his US debut in a four-round TKO defeat to Raymond Gatica on a Banner Promotions’ Boxcino Tournament series on ESPN.

“I made a lot of very selfish decisions at the time which affected me because being a young guy from Ghana, I was eager to get a lot done quickly. And at the time, I didn’t really understand. And I say this because I want the world to understand that Alex Kotey didn’t do anything wrong to me.

“It was me who just wanted so much done quickly that I felt unhappy with his plan. So, I eventually went my own way, which I later regretted and apologized to him. His plan was to get me in with Top Rank. And to do that, he wanted me to go up against one of their guys, but then the fights were also not immediately forthcoming.

“And I thought I needed to pick a fight right away. But what he wanted was for me to take my time, let me be in the system for a little bit, train really well, and then after that, get me in with Top Rank and then see how that would go.”

Agbeko went on hibernation for three years after the Gatica defeat. The inactivity was a result of a promotional dispute with Banner Promotions.

“I had moved to Las Vegas and was staying with Joseph Agbeko (former IBF bantamweight champion). So, there were a few instances where we had a lot of fights that kept falling through. People would offer the fights, we would take it and then before you know the fight would get canceled for one reason or the other.

“In the course of training for a fight, I injured my right hand and when I tried to get them to help me to go get it treated, that’s when I realized that these people may have more sinister plans because they wouldn’t want me to do it. So, I got angry. They wanted to give me a cortisone shot for me to go ahead with the fight. And I was like, how are you gonna give me a cortisone shot to go ahead with the fight? That is wrong. Like, my hand needs actual treatment.”

When he returned with a six-round unanimous decision victory over Timothy Hall Jr in March 2017, Agbeko went on to win seven fights in a row before losing to Vladimir Shishkin in February 2021. Five months later, he stopped Daniel Yocupicio Mendez in one round and went on to record five consecutive victories, including a 10-round unanimous decision win over Isaiah Steen.

Agbeko landed a shot at David Morrell Jr’s WBA secondary super middleweight title after that run last December. The fight was supposed to have taken place eight months prior, but Agbeko had issues with his license, forcing him to fight Bruno Romay instead. 

Two months after a second-round stoppage of Romay last October, Agbeko faced Morrell in his maiden world title fight. He could only last two rounds with the Cuban.

“That fight being canceled broke me down because I had lost so much money preparing for Morrell. And during the months that followed, I was pretty much a broken man because these things are not easy to deal with. It’s not easy to train really hard for a fight for months and people try to insinuate that I had a problem.

“I had to fight to prove that there was nothing wrong with me when the commission gave me my license but then it was a week and a half too late because the fight had already happened. I actually had a test that was done and presented to the commission that showed that I was good, and only then did they grant me my license.

 “By the time they offered me the fight again, not only was I a broken man, but God knows what they could have done. I was prepared for the fight but the question is what did he have in his sleeve that they didn’t want to do any drug testing? Like, I’m not saying that he cheated but my question is, if you don’t have anything to hide, why then do you not want to be drug tested?”

Last week, Agbeko suffered another TKO loss to Cuba’s Osleys Igleys. Despite the rollercoaster career, Agbeko believes he still has something to offer to the sport by moving down to 160. 

“It was a good fight. I prepared as best as I could and I just fell short. As a result of that, I think that the super middleweight division, the guys there are a little too big for me. So, I’ve made the decision that I’m going to start campaigning at 160.

“That’s my decision going forward that I’m going to plan on having a fight hopefully by the end of this year or very early next year at my new weight.”

Bernard Neequaye is a sports journalist with a specialty in boxing coverage. He wrote a boxing column titled “From The Ringside” in his native Ghana for years. He can be reached on X (formerly Twitter) at @BernardNeequaye, LinkedIn at Bernard Neequaye and through email at [email protected].