Delicious Orie: Depression fears prompted shock retirement decision
Black Country fighter was tipped for stardom but walked away.
Bilston boxing ace Delicious Orie says the fear of sinking into depression prompted him to quit the sport.
Orie walked away last May, just a month after making his professional debut.
The 28-year-old Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games gold medallist had been tipped to become a future world champion and been the subject of a bidding war between the sport’s big promoters, after turning over to the pro ranks.
Speaking to the BBC, Orie explained how he decided to quit after realising boxing had no longer been giving him the same fulfillment as before.
He said: “I fear I would have ended up being a world champion but a very depressed, sad and miserable world champion.
“I genuinely thought money was the answer to my emptiness and I worked eight years to get that money and got that money.
“I was predicted to earn a lot more of it, only to realise it made me feel emptier.
“Money gives you a little bit of happiness, it really does. But it gives you zero fulfillment.
“What I learned getting to that point was I am not going to be fulfilled and I am going to end up in a place I don’t want to be in the next few years, if I don’t make a change.”
Asked if he feared suffering from depression, he replied: “Most definitely, 100 per cent. I feel like I would have been really stupid to know that and still keep going.”
Orie, who was born in Russia before moving to the UK aged seven, only took up boxing at the age of 18 after being inspired by watching Anthony Joshua on television.
The former Colton Hills Academy student was a poster boy for the Birmingham 2022 Games and went on to win gold on a raucous night at the NEC.
He then qualified for the Paris 2024 Olympics but was beaten in controversial fashion in the first round, which is when he first felt his feelings toward the sport change.
"There was no plan B, there was no other thing, it was just tunnel vision to win that medal," he says.
"So the fact that I didn't magnified the feeling even more when my hand wasn't raised.
"I gave everything to the sport, I missed everything - happiness, birthdays, weddings, funerals, everything.
"Knowing that I could never achieve that again when I didn't have my hand raised, that was very sobering."
Orie, who now works as a financial advisor, continued: "I had to make a choice. I either stepped away when it was more or less too late - when in my third or fourth year I get knocked out by some up-and-coming guy who purely just wants it more than me," he says.
"Or I have the power in my hands to step away and walk away from the things that I could have got."