How a bully's hot slap shaped Sarah Achieng's glittering boxing career
Reading Time: 2min | Thu. 06.11.25. | 07:20
Today, she is not only the Commonwealth Super Lightweight queen but also back-to-back World Super Lightweight champion
Kenya’s Sarah Achieng retained her World Boxing Federation (WBF) Super Lightweight title with a unanimous points victory over Tanzania’s Feriche Mashaury in a 10-round fight at the Red Room Lounge, Nairobi on Sunday, 2 November.
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It was a first title defense for the fighter nicknamed Angel of War, who outpointed Argentina’s Edith Soledad to become WBF super lightweight champion in June 2023.
With this victory, Achieng improves her record to 18-2-0, with half of her wins being Knockouts (KO). Her two losses date back to 2014 when she lost to Judy Waguthii, and the other was to back in 2008 to Bena Kaloki in Achieng’s pro debut.
Achieng's coach Alfred Analo however, believes his boxer hasn't lost fairly. Analo has seen her through a boxing career that started at the SOS gym in Outering Estate.
She was already in boxing training but an incident on her evening run in Buru Buru Estate, where a bully slapped her, almost knocking her down, changed her career forever.
"At first I thought the man was crazy. He was not. The guy was just an estate bully. I was young and there was little I could do,” recalls Achieng in an interview with boxersworld.co.ke. “I was shocked why a grown up man would do this to an innocent girl like me."
"I was then learning boxing without any ambition but that painful slap was the turning point. I now told myself I want to become a champion to prove the bully wrong and also use boxing as self defence. I was ready to fight any man who bullied me again," Achieng narrates.
Analo, the founder of the famous Boxgirls community-based organisation was not aware of the incident but admits Achieng was training harder and more serious. He learnt of the incident and her motive several fights into her career, but having been against street fights, his boxer had managed to stay out of trouble.
Indeed that unexpected slap was the cloud in a silver lining, inspiring Achieng to double her efforts, going on to become one of Kenya’s top professional boxers winning multiple titles.
Today Achieng is not only the Commonwealth Super Lightweight queen but also the reigning World Super Lightweight champion.
