Bilston Olympian Delicious Orie targets boxing glory after turning down professional wrestling career

The Paris 2024 Olympian officially turned over to the paid ranks this week when he signed with Frank Warren’s Queensberry Promotions.

But that was only after seriously considering a career change having received a lucrative offer to join the WWE.

Orie, who admitted to being left “completely distraught” by his controversial first round exit in Paris, visited Florida in the Autumn to see how the business of wrestling works and was impressed by what he found.

But after months of soul-searching the 27-year-old, who says he will never get over last summer's first round exit to Davit Chaloyan, ultimately decided to keep following his dreams in the boxing ring.

Orie told Ring Magazine: "After the games, I was completely distraught. I thought my world was crumbling. I thought I'd let everybody down and I'm not going to amount to anything, kind of thing.

"So, when I got that interest for the WWE, it was like, OK, I've still got something that I could do. I'm familiar with the WWE and I've watched it since I was a kid, so it was something that I definitely would go down to. I went down to Florida to see what it's all about.

"But, you know, over the weeks, over the months of thinking about it, I was thinking, nah, what's really going to fulfil me as a human being is seeing how far I can go as a professional boxer."

Orie, who has Nigerian father and Russian mother, moved to the UK from Moscow aged seven and took up boxing less than a decade ago after being inspired by Anthony Joshua’s world title success.

And he now wants to emulate the work of his hero, both inside and outside the ring.

Asked about his ambitions in an interview with Queensberry Promotions, he said: “The dream is to, No.1, make sure I look after he people around me, my mom and dad.

“No.2 is heavyweight champion of the world. Make people aware I am here and I might be a nice guy but in the ring is different.“No.3 is to inspire as many people as possible. Make them believe. That kid who is 10 years old who has moved to the country and can’t speak a word of English. If you work hard enough, you can get it.”

Orie believes everything is now set up in his favour, having overcome countless hardships to reach this point.

That included working part-time to fund his own university education, after being told he could not attend due to then not holding a UK passport.

The wait for the latter then held up an amateur career which went on to see him win gold at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.

Orie, who holds a first-class business degree from Aston, said: “I was relentless. No matter what I go through as a professional fighter, I don’t think I’ll go through what I did between the age of 18 and say 22, 23 because that was completely a gamble, a risk. No matter how hard you worked, you may not be able to get it.

“I would say that is the hardest chunk of my life. This part now is the fun part. It is the part I am going to be able to reap all the rewards from all the years of hard work.

“I just have to show people. I have everything now. I can’t complain. I am getting paid, I have a fantastic coach, an amazing manager and I am boxing for the best promotion in the world.

“How can I not do well? That doesn’t make any sense to me. Before I had no education, no money, I had nothing. And I still did it. How can I not succeed now?”