By Phil Rivera of Boxing Tribune<\/p>\n
Last week, ESPN and Banner Promotions announced it had joined forces to create the 2014 Boxcino Tournament; where lightweight and middleweight contenders will compete in separate single-elimination brackets beginning February 21. The field is a diverse mix of prospects and veterans from various parts of the world. One of the middleweight\u2019s taking part is Sena Agbeko (15-0, 15 KOs) of Ghana; who makes his U.S. debut against Raymond Gatica (13-2, 8 KOs) in a six round bout.<\/p>\n
Agbeko became interested in boxing while following the career of Azumah Nelson, who many consider to be the greatest African fighter of all time. In 2008, he began to box and has rarely left the gym since. Now, at 21-years-old, he hopes to win the Boxcino title and join the likes of Ike Quartey, Joshua Clottey and Joseph Agbeko, as the latest champion to come out of Ghana.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are looking to me to be the next big thing to come out of the country,\u201d said Agbeko. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of expectations and pressure on my shoulders. But it\u2019s a good thing, because they inspire me to train hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although he boasts the record with the highest Knockout percentage of the tournament, he has yet to fight outside of Ghana, or face the level of competition the tourney will provide. Still, don\u2019t look for Agbeko to be intimidated by his opponent\u2019s edge in experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to win the tournament,\u201d said Agbeko. \u201cI believe 100 percent that I could beat the rest of the seven guys in the bracket if I had too; because I\u2019m the hardest working guy in this tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now that he\u2019s ready to take the next step in his young career, his representatives at KO Management have moved him to Tennessee; where he trains, away from the distractions that exist at home. It took time for him to get used to the climate change (average temperature in Ghana is about 85 degrees), but now that he\u2019s settled, he plans to stay in the U.S.<\/p>\n
\u201cTennessee is peaceful and there are no distractions,\u201d Agbeko said. \u201cMy future is here in the U.S., because there\u2019s so much I want to accomplish and going back to Ghana wouldn\u2019t exactly give me the chance to do that.\u201c<\/p>\n
Last year, Agbeko graduated from The Ghana School of Journalism, making him the first Ghanaian boxer to ever complete tertiary education (college). He wants to one day pursue a career in broadcasting.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what I\u2019ve always been interested in doing, that\u2019s where my passion has always been. Hopefully when I retire I can work in broadcasting,\u201d said the undefeated middleweight.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been 30 years since Azumah Nelson put \u201cThe Gold Coast\u201d on the map by knocking out Wilfredo Gomez. Since then, Ghana has produced solid fighters, but none of whom have captured the public\u2019s attention the way Nelson once did.<\/p>\n
On February 28, in Hammond, Indiana, Agbeko begins his run at glory; with the hope of creating a new path for African boxers and earning the worlds respect.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of times fighters coming from Africa haven\u2019t been given much respect,\u201d said Agbeko. \u201cI have the chance to change that and create a new era for African guys like me. I want to be the one in recent times to bring about the respect for African fighters like Azumah Nelson accomplished in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n
You can follow Sena Agbeko on istagram and twitter @senaagbeko<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last week, ESPN and Banner Promotions announced it had joined forces to create the 2014 Boxcino Tournament; where lightweight and middleweight contenders will compete in separate single-elimination brackets beginning February 21. The field is a diverse mix of prospects and veterans from various parts of the world. One of the middleweight\u2019s taking part is Sena Agbeko (15-0, 15 KOs) of Ghana; who makes his U.S. debut against Raymond Gatica (13-2, 8 KOs) in a six round bout.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6705,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[412,404,42,194],"class_list":["post-6762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-boxcino","tag-espn","tag-friday-night-fights","tag-sena-agbeko"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/banner-promotions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/banner-promotions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/banner-promotions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banner-promotions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banner-promotions.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6762"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/banner-promotions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6838,"href":"https:\/\/banner-promotions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6762\/revisions\/6838"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banner-promotions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/banner-promotions.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banner-promotions.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banner-promotions.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}