From fighting for his life at 15 to boxing in a world championship bout at the stadium of the football club he supports, Richard Riakporhe is a living example of how sport can change lives.
The cruiserweight, 34, is a south-east London native, and will challenge fellow Englishman Chris Billam-Smith for the WBO cruiserweight title at Premier League side Crystal Palace’s home, Selhurst Park, on Saturday.
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Born in nearby Dulwich and raised on the Aylesbury Estate a little further north in Southwark, Riakporhe had a late introduction to boxing at the age of 19. His entry into the sport spawned from a change in mindset after he was stabbed in the chest outside a house party as a 15-year-old.
Riakporhe was asked to hand over his phone but refused, despite not actually having one at the time, and now has a permanent reminder of what followed: a scar down the centre of his chest. He may not have been looking for trouble that night but he needed to take action, which came in two forms.
“I started to do more self-analysis, which derived from how I got myself in the situation to get stabbed,” the former British cruiserweight champion tells The Athletic.
“I thought about where I would be in the next few years and my younger brother Patrick, who was studying accounting, gave me advice. He said he forecasted his budget for the next two years. I thought, ‘What!?’, and he said there are people who forecast 10 to 15 years ahead, which changed everything for me.
“I realised if I wanted to get to certain places, I’d have to plan and start focusing on the process rather than the destination. That altered my decision-making and progress came quickly. Beforehand, a lot of my decisions were self-sabotaging. When I stopped making those decisions, my life improved instantly.”
One choice Riakporhe made was to address his environment.
The Aylesbury Estate has a reputation as one of the most notorious estates in the United Kingdom due to the amount of crime in the area, while also having orders for demolition going back 15 years because of the living conditions for residents. While some areas of south-east London have been gentrified in recent times, there remain pockets where desperation means even people who are not involved in criminal activity can be victims of it, as Riakporhe was.
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“Growing up on a council estate in south London, you’re likely to be a product of your environment,” he says. “I was in that situation many times because it’s so easy to get caught up in something in this area. For example, if people make a living by robbing phones and you take their route to go to or from school, even if you’re not involved in their way of life, you are bound to cross them one day.
“After being in that environment, you start to realise the invisible limits that are placed on you and that you place on yourself mentally. When I got stabbed at 15, it made me realise that, even though I wasn’t looking for trouble, that’s not enough to avoid certain situations. I needed to remove myself from the environment or find different people to hang around with — which is very difficult.”
The decision to go to Kingston University, over in more affluent south-west London, and get a marketing communications and advertising degree helped create that separation. As did boxing. Riakporhe now trains in Loughborough, a small university town in the East Midlands that’s a near three-hour drive from his London roots, but he first fell into boxing just over a mile away from the Aylesbury Estate.
The overwhelming pros that have come from that choice are evident in his professional boxing career, in which he boasts 17 wins from 17 fights — but one con did rear its head earlier this year.
It came when Saturday’s opponent Billam-Smith questioned his loyalty to Palace.
Billam-Smith, who supports Bournemouth and won the WBO belt at their Vitality Stadium by outpointing champion Lawrence Okolie in May 2023, claimed to have photos of Riakporhe in a Millwall shirt, and that his domestic rival really supported that Bermondsey-based club — local rivals of Palace.
Riakporhe refutes the idea.
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“I’ve never supported Millwall,” he explains.
“My coaches were from Bermondsey, just off Old Kent Road, so they all grew up as Millwall fans (that area of London’s local professional club). They asked me to wear a shirt one day and take a picture. As a man of my word, I did it, but I regret that now because it’s blown up. It was just them wanting to push their support for Millwall onto other people.”
Riakporhe, who grew up with ambitions of becoming a footballer, admits he had fallen out of love with the game at this stage.
He played for a local team run by the mother of Jason Euell, a fan favourite at another nearby pro side Charlton Athletic, in his early years but, after the stabbing, the window had closed on him making it at one of south London’s top clubs.
All his focus was on boxing.
That continued through his early years as a professional fighter, which delayed a reunion with Palace.
“Unfortunately, the football dream didn’t come to pass, so I started doing athletics (track and field), but then I wanted to do something else that made me feel alive,” Riakporhe says. “I thought, ‘What’s better than boxing?’.
“The relationship with Palace started around six years ago. They were always telling me to come down but I was busy with my fights. It then got to a point where I wanted to rediscover my first love: football.
Look who popped by yesterday 👀
Good to see you, @R_Riakporhe 🥊#CPFC pic.twitter.com/kJ7hRILl38
— Crystal Palace F.C. (@CPFC) March 4, 2022
“After winning my British title fight (Riakporhe beat Jack Massey via unanimous decision at the famous York Hall in east London’s Bethnal Green in December 2019 to claim the championship vacated by Okolie), I was pitchside to showcase the belt at Selhurst Park and everybody showed me so much love.
“I was so shocked. I’d never received any love ever but to get that type of reception… they didn’t have to do that. It was half-time, so I didn’t think anyone would listen but they were listening intently to everything I was saying. At first, I felt a little out of place but after that reception, it felt like home.”
Being embraced by the crowd at Selhurst Park had a lasting impact on Riakporhe, prompting him to emblazon his boxing shorts with Crystal Palace’s eagle emblem.
“I knew I was going to the top, but for the support and love they showed me, it was coming back 10-fold,” he adds. “If you show me love, I’m going to show it back, because I didn’t realise that type of love existed.
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“When I used to tell people I supported Crystal Palace, they would laugh and ask why. I’d say, ‘It’s a proper team, that’s why’. It’s hard to find that these days. If you support Palace, it teaches you a lot about your character and your loyalty, and I respect that so much.”
When he steps into the ring under the lights at Palace’s ground this weekend, Riakporhe will be out to thwart a revenge mission.
Billam-Smith, 33, has a 19-1 professional record. His sole defeat? To Riakporhe, by split decision, for the WBA Inter-Continental cruiserweight belt in July 2019.
Selhurst Park hosting his world championship fight is not just a full-circle moment because of Riakporhe’s support for Palace nor the repeat or revenge narrative. With finances meaning many of boxing’s top fights now take place in far-off Saudi Arabia, Riakporhe says the ease of getting to Saturday’s venue for fellow south Londoners was part of the decision to stage his showdown with Billam-Smith there.
“A lot of people may not have thought it would be possible to do a stadium show in the heart of south London and make it so accessible to people who don’t have a lot of money,” he says.
“The starting price for the tickets is £30 ($38), so it’s giving people an opportunity to see what’s happening and support a fellow south Londoner who is trying to achieve his dreams with a fight that can put him in the history books forever. We can talk about it all day, but people need to see it to believe it.”
Riakporhe, who has his own charitable foundation aimed at providing safe and positive environments for children and young people, has not had to look too far to see the impact of sportsmen in his area.
Reiss Nelson, a winger for Premier League title contenders Arsenal, also grew up on the Aylesbury Estate. The 24-year-old attended Michael Faraday Primary School, situated in the centre of the estate, and funded a new pitch for the school last year. It was an action appreciated by the children it would affect, and something Riakporhe hopes to replicate in his own way.
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“Creating new opportunities is very important,” he says. “Reiss Nelson lived on the next block from me, so I could see the school from my house. The aim is not just to be successful in your own right: it’s about giving back, too. I remember feeling like I had no opportunities or role models, so I want to create both within myself. What Reiss Nelson did is what it’s all about: creating opportunities for people who don’t have any.
“I’ve had a lot of people try to give me advice, but I always look at what results they have to make me believe what they’re saying. I’ve noticed a lot of people like to give advice with no CV (resumé). If I want to have an impact on my community, I have to be the example. If somebody finds out I came from the same area as them, it should be a motivation, because I had a similar amount of opportunities as you and did something with myself.”
Whether or not Riakporhe becomes a world champion this weekend, his CV will hold weight.
A world title belt could catapult what he can offer to those who grew up like him to another stratosphere, but the fight itself will provide an opportunity for those from his area, and others, to see what is possible in life with the right mindset.
(Top photo: Alex Livesey/Getty Images)