Ekow Essuman heads into another welterweight test this weekend in Manchester insisting the pressure is off, even after the first stoppage loss of his career. The 37-year-old will face Jack Rafferty, and says the bout is simply another chance to do what he does best.
“It’s not a position I find myself in much,” Essuman said of being in the spotlight after his November defeat to Jack Catterall. He was stopped for the first time in 24 fights by Catterall, who has since moved on to a world title fight, but Essuman said the result has not changed his outlook. “But how much is on the line? To me, nothing’s on the line. It’s just go out and do what I do. I’m not boxing for anyone aside from myself and my family. I’m going to go out there, do what I do, enjoy it, and do it well and get paid for it.”
The fight arrives at a useful moment for both men. Essuman is 22-2 with 8 knockouts and has already been in with Chris Kongo, Harry Scarff, Owen Cooper, Ben Vaughan, Josh Taylor and Catterall since early 2023, a run that has kept him active against solid opposition. Frank Warren has called him one of the most stubborn boxers in his stable, and Essuman said he does not want a soft landing after the Catterall loss. “Even so, after the last match, I said, ‘I don't want to get an easy match to come down to,’” he said. “I don’t want to drop down a level. ‘Put me back in.’ This is the level I belong at. This is the level I’ll succeed at. This is the level where people will predict some and a certain version of me is going to show up and then a different version shows up and the world shatters.”
Rafferty, he added, is not a target he is overlooking. “He’s good at what he does,” Essuman said, before suggesting that his November defeat owed more to timing and style than a permanent decline. He described the loss as coming against “a high-level trick” and said he believes the sort of fight Rafferty expects at 147 lbs will not play out the same way. “I think the way he was fighting, he was probably more of big for the weight, so that allowed him to do what he wanted to do or what he did at the weight. I think the fight that he thinks he’s going to have with me [having moved up to 147lbs], he is going to have a real epiphany that he was wrong. And I think timing is a great thing. People’s perception of timing is also a great thing. And I’ll leave it at that,” he said.
Essuman’s self-image is built as much on conditioning as on chin or skill. He said his foundation is “a state of mind,” that his nickname, The Engine, reflects mindset and sports science knowledge, and that he prefers Hyrox-style strength and conditioning to traditional weight training. Born in Botswana, he said he could easily add too much size if he trained only with weights. “If I got in the gym and I pushed weights, just like a lot of other people do, I’d probably be a middleweight,” he said. That edge, he added, is part of why he believes he belongs at welterweight rather than trying to make life easier elsewhere.
The bigger question now is whether Essuman can turn the Catterall setback into another hard-earned win without changing the style that carried him this far. If he does, the man who was stopped once in 24 fights may prove that the loss was a detour, not a warning.
