BoxRec

Former boxing champion Tokunbo Olajide won't shake a fan's hands or allow anybody
to touch him, but to Olajide, there's a good reason why. Olajide became a Yoruba priest
on May 31, and religious rules forbid him to make bodily contact with anyone for a
year.

His new priesthood makes him a "newborn" in the religion, and he must protect
himself as such. In addition to avoiding physical contact for a year, Olajide must wear
white clothing, eat his meals on the floor, keep his head covered, and observe other
delicate rites.

At first glance, it’s hard to picture Olajide as “a priest,” or as anything other than an
athlete. His hardened body and strong facial features betray his attempts to emulate a
more serene lifestyle. Still, there’s some softness to him. He grins often, and uses
animated hands to accentuate his conversations. And, though his fingers look rough
like a boxer’s, they move like an artist’s fingers move when painting.

Photo albums on his living room table reveal that he has been through many hairstyles
—from a “hip” fro, typical of a Manhattan bohemian just last year, to the cornrows he
wore during some of his boxing years, to the short, curly tresses that poke out fromunderneath the hat that now covers his head.

He had shaved his head two months ago when he became a priest, but he jokes about
what a cushion of hair he has grown so quickly.

Though a self-described man of humor, Olajide takes on a very serious tone when he
discusses his religion. "It's all about being unmarked," Olajide, 31, explained of
Yoruba priesthood, while crossing his legs on his couch, Yoga-style.

Striving to be "unmarked" in his religion seems to also be Olajide's way of unmarking
himself from his past as a boxer. He is the rarest breed of boxer, a successful fighter
who walked away from a lucrative career to embark on the quiet, religious life he now
lives in Central Harlem.

"There was so much about boxing that just wasn't natural," Olajide laments in his
Harlem apartment as John Coltrane's "Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise," plays in the
background.

Olajide had boxed throughout his entire childhood mainly because he was the product
of his father's boxing dreams, not because of some natural desire to enter the ring.

His father, a Nigerian immigrant named Michael Olajide had run a successful boxing
gym in Manhattan in the 1980s and was determined to train Tokunbo and his older
brother, Michael Jr. in the sport. Almost every day since Olajide was 12, his father
took the two boys to the gym to lift weight, practice boxing, and even operate the
gym.

“I was there so much, I literally ran the place,” Olajide recalled of his childhood gym
training.

He liked the physical nature of boxing, but would much rather have written in his
journal, or played one of the many jazz instruments that caught his interest at that
time: the sax, the trumpet or the drums.

“Music was a really major part of my [interests],” Olajide said.

But, as the son of a man was steeped in boxing, young Olajide could cultivate neither
his literary nor musical side in a boxing gym.

As a result, silent tensions developed between Olajide and his father. Olajide never
protested; his father was the only parent he had.

“My dad was one of those Nigerian men who saw his children as cattle,’’ Olajide said.
“For years, I just went along, boxing...”

His mother Kokumo Olajide, a woman he fondly describes as an "earthy, hippy, black
chick," could have potentially helped nurture his inner artist as a child, Olajide said.

But, she and Olajide's father separated, and she went to live in her native Canada,
while Olajide lived with his brother and father in New York. According to Olajide, his
mother missed out on his childhood, and her abandonment devastated him. "Not that
all young boys don't need their mother, but I was one of those young boys who really
needed his mom...I was very sensitive," he recalled.

Eventually, he learned to harden himself as a junior middleweight boxer. He became
good at scarring his opponents, knocking them out 17 times during the course of his
20 career wins.

Olajide's close friend, E.J. Burke, who is an amateur boxer himself, explains how
Olajide's ferocious personality as a boxer evolved separately from who he was as a
sensitive child. "It's funny when you [contrast] how [Olajide] is as a boxer, and how he
is as a person,’’ Burke said. “As a boxer, he's more like an animal, but as a person,
there's something very pure about him. He's the kind of person who will go to
someone's house for the first time and bring the perfect gift for the person.”

The ferocity in Olajide earned him considerable boxing merits: he began his
professional career at age 21, and earned a United States Boxing Association (USBA)
title that same year. He lost only two fights in his seven-year career. Much of the
boxing world admired him--including BBC sports writer, Sanjeev Shetty, who in 2002
described Olajide as having "the power and pedigree to back up his reputation as one
of boxing's future champions."Even Olajide's opponents, who, one could argue, viewed boxing as their religion,
would have snatched up the professional opportunity that lay at Olajide's feet at the
peak of his career in 2005. They understood that Olajide "was just a couple of fights
away from making millions and millions of dollars," Burke said.

But, the artist in Olajide that had been buried in his childhood, came out to haunt him
that year, and the idea of making millions of dollars as a boxer was not enough to
satiate him.

“More and more, I felt like I was boxing for money, and for my father,’’ he said. “I
needed my own identity.”

He soon quit the profession.

According to Olajide, the decision to quit came one fateful night in 2005, when he
arrived in Las Vegas with his promoter.

"I looked at the shining lights and the limo that was waiting for me," he said. “I
realized that, if limos and lights was all there was at the end of boxing, then I would
have to leave."

Even Olajide’s father could not stop him from leaving; their relationship had been so
strained at that point that Olajide stopped seeking his approval.

“I wanted to see what would happen if I stopped boxing…if I stopped serving him,”
Olajide said of their ultimately damaged relationship.

Olajide returned to New York in late 2005, at the age of 28. He had never held a job
other than boxing, and he had never lived in any place other than his apartment on
34th street and Park Avenue, which had been subsidized with a boxing salary. But he
so feverishly wanted to shed his identity--his mark--as a boxer and as his father’s socalled cash cattle that he never turned back to Vegas.

Soon after his resettling in New York, Olajide found a job as a superintendent in a 53-
unit apartment building on West 138th street, where he now lives. Burke, who had
helped him secure the job, recalls what a quick-study Olajide proved himself to be.

"He learned everything so fast, that it didn't even matter that he didn't have much
experience [as a superintendent]," Burke said. AYoruba priest himself, Burke
introduced Olajide to the religion, which Olajide said gave him the discipline he
needed to do his job as a superintendent.

Olajide also credits his father for teaching him discipline. At "age 13, when things
would break around dad's boxing gym, dad would just be like, "Tokunbo, come here,
fix this," Olajide said.

These days, however, Olajide steers clear of both his father—not so much as a phone
call, Olajide said—and his boxing career.

A few times a week, he helps others learn boxing. In fact, before his priesthood
restrictions settled in over a month ago, he’d taught a class at his brother's gym in
midtown Manhattan and gained a devoted following among his students—enough to
build his roster of independent clients.

Didi Conn, a 57-year-old actress best known for her role as "Frenchy" in the movie
Grease is one current client of Olajide’s.

Conn is writing a play about a middle-aged woman who seeks to rehabilitate herself
through boxing, and she’d contacted Olajide to teach her boxing after learning about
his reputation.

"He taught me that life is like boxing,” Conn said. “And that you take each of its
punches, one at a time, and commit [to each] fully.”

Through his new life, Olajide seems to have found a balance between his physical and
spiritual self. He touches people, though he cannot make physical contact with them.