ANTHONY OGOGO - LIFE AFTER PRO SPORT

After a career in boxing, Anthony Ogogo is living life in the United States as a professional wrestler, performing internationally as “The Guv’nor”. He is also running his own fitness and coaching business “Ogogo Fitness”, offering app-based programs and elite coaching focused on transforming men's physical and mental health - “making men better men”. 

Born in Lowestoft, Suffolk - Anthony took up boxing aged 12, winning gold in the junior Olympics just four years later. By 2012 he’d secured a place on Team GB for the London Olympics, going on to win a Bronze medal, which teed him up for a professional contract with Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions. Over the next three and half years Anthony won 11 fights before suffering a broken eye socket and a first career defeat in his 12th bout, leaving him without sight in his left eye. Countless surgeries followed, costing all the earnings boxing had brought him and after many botched attempts over the next three years, Anthony was finally forced to accept retirement. Without the means to provide and without the sense of purpose or identity that boxing had brought him, he was in a very dark place. 

MF: Anthony, tell me about what it was like to be forced into retirement?

AO: When my boxing career ended, I had lost everything and I fell right to the bottom. I lost my purpose and I simply stopped training. Fitness is the anchor to my life and it was exercise that saved me. I had to switch the mentality that I had in training for competition for simply training for life. I had to fight for my health and for confidence in myself again. 

MF: How has this experience shaped your approach to fitness?

AO: Well from a mental health perspective, fitness is my anchor - it’s helped me through many dark places and I currently live a good life, full of purpose. I love helping people become physically and mentally fit. 

Anthony’s fitness coaching leverages his experience as a professional athlete to guide clients through transformative processes, "Making men better men" through fitness and mindset shifts. Having suffered setbacks himself he takes a holistic approach to: Physical fitness, mental well-being, and lifestyle improvements. Anthony is particularly well placed to deal with men and women, who wish to lose weight. He has himself lost over 1000 kgs himself during his life. 

MF: How has the transition been from pro boxing to being a wrestler and an elite fitness coach?

AO: Well I’ve tried to run away from boxing at times, but at the end of the day it is my first love and I’ve learned to lean into my past to be content. Equally it’s been a dream since childhood to be a wrestler and right now I’m happy - I’m living my purpose.

Anthony lives with long-term girlfriend and their 6-month old baby, together they live in the state of Georgia, while he travels up and down the country performing as a wrestler. 

MF: Tell me about wrestling and how that’s a dream come true?

AO: Wrestling is an art and I love the performance. Unlike in boxing, where if you are better than your opponent - you win. In wrestling it’s subjective, so you need to put on a good show to get ahead in this world. It’s more about a performance than the competition. It’s great fun, I love it. 

Anthony advocates a life anchored in movement and fulfilment through fitness. He is an articulate and passionate man, who finds great reward in helping people change their habits to enhance their life both physically and mentally. Having competed at the highest level, achieving accolades that remain the stuff of dreams for most folks, he then faced serious physical limitations, ending his career and changing the trajectory of his career. Having re-built himself through movement and exercise, he is having great success bringing his man-management to those in their 30’s and 40’s looking to enhance their lives. 

"You don't rise to the occasion, you fall to the level of your preparation"

- Anthony Ogogo

Movement reminds us that we live in our bodies, not just our minds and restores a sense of agency - we are in control.  Fitness builds self-efficacy and self-assurance in our achievements outside the gym. We are all limited editions, with limitless possibilities.