Ike Ibeabuchi vs. Tim Ray

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Ike Ibeabuchi 241 lbs beat Tim Ray 215 lbs by TKO at 2:33 in round 1 of 8

• Date: 1998-07-09
• Location: Grand Casino Avoyelles, Marksville, Louisiana, USA
• Referee: Paul Sita

This was Ibeabuchi's first fight since upsetting David Tua thirteen months earlier. His inactivity was due to legal troubles.

A couple of months after the Tua fight, distraught over a perceived snub in the WBC rankings, Ibeabuchi abducted the 15-year-old son of his former girlfriend and slammed his car into a concrete pillar on Interstate 35 north of Austin, Texas. According to the criminal complaint, the boy suffered "numerous injuries" from the accident "and will never walk normally again." Ibeabuchi was charged with kidnapping and attempted murder, but the courts concluded he was trying to commit suicide, and he was sentenced to 120 days after pleading guilty to false imprisonment. He also paid a $500,000 civil settlement.

"It was a very frustrating case because what he did wasn't as clearly criminal as what I expected him to get involved with down the line," said District Attorney John Bradley, who prosecuted Ibeabuchi. "I fully expected that his contact with the criminal justice system had not ended with our county. We weren't able to get him examined, but it sure seemed to me -- even if he was a heavyweight boxer looking at making millions of dollars -- that he should have been committed to a psychiatric community and treated." [1]