When the career obituaries of Ohara Davies were written at the end of 2024, apparently he had not been such a bad guy after all.

The often-divisive Londoner was likeable, friendly, and had been playing a character for us – the media and the fans – all along. 

However, faced with the opportunity to box in Ghana he returns on Saturday against Mohamed Aliseni on a bill co-promoted by Amir Khan.

From 25-4 (18 KOs), the London-born 33 year old is ready to end his career on his own terms.

“Over the last few years, I’ve just decided just to be myself,” Davies told BoxingScene. “At the start of my boxing career, I played the character because in this game, it’s the characters that sell. If I was just me from the start of my boxing career, I wouldn’t sell. 

“People, they wouldn’t be interested in my life; they wouldn't be interested in my boxing career. I couldn’t sell any tickets and I had to make it a thing where I need people to come out and hope to see me lose, but they’re still going to come out. They’re still going to watch. They’re still going to go online and start talking about me, because I couldn’t sell any tickets. My character, which is, I’m quite a boring person – that doesn’t sell – so at the start of my boxing career, I had to play a role.”

While Davies had to diversify, it was not something he was loath to do. It was actually something he embraced.

“I loved it,” he said. “I loved every moment of it; every fight that I came out to; every fight that I came out to when I got booed, and they said I’m this and I’m that, and they’re saying all these bad words about me on social media. I loved it, because you know what, to me, it was an experience. 

“I grew up watching people like Floyd [Mayweather]; [Muhammad] Ali; and the way that they got booed, and they wrote bad things about them, they wrote bad things about me, and I felt like, ‘Listen, I’m living the dreams of my idols’.”

Much was written about Davies following his loss in January 2024 to Ismael Barroso in Las Vegas, having only then recently signed with Golden Boy Promotions. It had all gone so wrong when Davies was dropped twice and stopped in less than two minutes.

“It wasn't just a career low – that was a life low for me because after that fight I was in a bad way,” he revealed. “I was in a bad way because it should have been a fight that I should have won pretty easily, but I got caught with a good shot, and it messed things up, and I was meant to be world champion, and have all of these opportunities for me next, and when that happened… Listen, I’m never down – I’m always quite a positive person – but I was down and I was in a dark place, and there was no one that could get me out of that dark place but myself.”

Some tried to help. His girlfriend at the time tried to wrestle him from his depressive cocoon; he hid away and said that it was the only time he had been depressed in his life. He sat around and ate pizza in his bid to “escape reality”, and it was made all the more painful having played out in front of his ring idol, Oscar De La Hoya. He so desperately wanted to impress, given that he says even meeting the “Golden Boy” was his career high. 

“I’m hoping I can get back to where I once was, and it all starts on the 13th of June,” he said.

“I’m back. It’s not the end of me, and I believe I can get where I once got to and even further because I’ve been written off by everyone, and right now I feel like I’m the underdog, and I’ve been forgotten about and the motivation now is to get back where I once was; to show everyone. That’s the motivation for me to come back, and to do what I’m doing – to be my best, to work hard, and to one day become a world champion. I’ve still got these dreams and I believe now, at this new weight class, with my new team – with the rest that I had and the new mindset I’ve got – I believe it can be done.”

Davies will be fighting at welterweight, but also can envisage a move to 154lbs, and he maintains a passion for the work that goes on inside the gym. Outside of it, however, he is not so keen on the inner workings of the sport.

“I love the training,” he said. “The business of boxing, I hate. The business of boxing, I don't like.

“If it was up to me, I just want to box and fight. But luckily, I’ve got a good team behind me – Lee Eaton, and Let’s Go Management. They sort everything out; anything that's wrong: ‘Lee, you go sort that out, because I don’t like dealing with the boxing side?’ The meetings, and you know – all of that stuff.

“And then the politics. The politics of boxing has been the worst thing. 

“I hate that side of boxing, which is why now I'm not really on social media as I once was. It’s that side of boxing I don’t like. Your profile’s up to the point where you don’t really need it as much as you would have back then. The part where they’re telling me to play a certain character before a fight – to help sell a fight.

“That’s why, before I fought Azim, in a press conference, I told them, ‘Listen, you guys wanted me to talk shit to Azim; I’m talking shit to you; Azim's new in the game, but you're also new in the game, Ben [Shalom, the promoter]’.

“And I spoke to all the media. I said, ‘You’re all c****; you’re all c****, because the way you people are’. And I couldn’t say that at the start of my boxing career, but I can say that now. And I will continue to say that now. The way that the media are – the media don’t help us. They don’t help us fighters. And the media are the reason why a lot of fighters end up a bit depressed – down; depressed – because the media, it's like a fake friend, you know? Fake friends, they come around when you’re really doing good. They want to speak to you and to be around you. Second you get beat, they’re gone. And it’s the same thing with the media.

“All these different people from the boxing circuit and the boxing channels, they act like your friend. The second you get beat, not only do they want no interview – that’s fine. But there’s no text to see how you’re doing. ‘How you are? How you’re feeling?’ The only people that messaged me when I’m down, only Kugan [Cassius of IFL TV] and only Louis [Hart, of The Ring], that worked at Boxing Social. Apart from them, no one from the boxing media approached me after the Barroso fight to see how things are. 

“But if I won the fight, it would have been everyone on my case. ‘How are you doing? Let’s meet up, let’s go for food.’ No, I’m like, ‘Listen, you’re a bunch of pricks, mate’. “So right now, I’m not bothered with that stuff. I’ve got my own page on my YouTube now and I do my own videos. I upload my own videos and everything’s on my terms now because I’m not going out of my way for no one because no one will go out of their way for me. And this isn’t just in boxing, this is life.”
It all starts again for Davies on Saturday inside the Bukom Boxing Arena. He plans to trade on experience as much as power, and he knows in sparring he is being seen as “the old fox”.
That tag offended him at first, but he is learning to embrace it. He has seen enough to justify it. He knows Aliseni “is not a great opponent” but said: “I haven’t fought in so long, and it’s just a fight just to get me back out there”.

He also believes life is better for boxing than had it been without it.

“So then,” he concludes. “When I look at the good luck, and I look at the bad luck that I faced, I’ve had more good luck than I’ve had bad luck. So, you know, it is what it is.”