Boxing: Ishmael Davis wants to use his troubled past to be a role model
“I’m born alone and I’m going to die alone, so go on your own journey.”
That statement from British light-middleweight Ishmael Davis might appear blunt at face value, but his harsh view on life was developed through some difficult formative years.
By the age of 14, Davis had been kicked out of school, kicked out of his childhood home and was adapting to the responsibility of caring for newborn twin sons.
“I had a bit of a rough upbringing,” Davis tells BBC Sport.
“I was living with my first baby’s mum at 14, went into a hostel until I was 15 and then I got my own flat.
“Because I wasn’t making money it was hard. I was only getting around £100 every two weeks. It was a hard time in my life but these are the things I’ve had to come through.”
Davis, now 30, first stepped into a boxing gym aged 12 and took part in an unlicensed amateur fight the following year, but any dreams of pursuing the sport further were shelved as he tried to provide for his children.
Despite still being a child himself, Davis turned to the streets of Chapeltown in Leeds to make ends meet.
“I was year nine when I had my first kids. After that I wanted to be out on the streets all the time and I got into gangs,” Davis says.
“Because I had kids young, I started selling drugs.”
Davis would land himself in prison not long after and was on the path some of his closest friends and family were walking.
On 15 November he faces Sam Gilley for the British and Commonwealth light-middleweight titles on the undercard of Chris Eubank Jr v Conor Benn at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium as he looks to get his career back in track after three losses in his past four fights.
Davis discusses how differently his life could have been if not for boxing and his personal drive.