Omari Boyd, #8 Ranked Glory Welterweight Undeterred by Current Circumstances
A Nashville native who is currently fighting out of Memphis, Tennessee, Omari Boyd is undeterred by the current state of things. Quite the opposite, he’s staying active with low impact workouts while letting previous injuries heal and believes this will give him the opportunity to return at absolute peak performance.
Between being a Civil/ Structural Engineer, kickboxing at the highest level in the world and being a family man, the Glory Kickboxing stand-out doesn’t have much spare time but luckily carved out a few minutes to give us a little glimpse of his story.
Omari’s mother was a swimmer while his father did martial arts, and he spent most of his childhood splitting his time between the two. It took him about ten years to get his black belt in Wado Ryu karate and from there he just kept growing his skill set. “All the men in and around my family all did martial arts. As a matter of fact 90% of the young males fought. We did because the men above us did, and I just took it to another level,” the welterweight reminisced when asked about his fighting roots.
The fighter went on to elaborate on what it’s like being the only GLORY kickboxer fighting out of Memphis. He revealed his self-discipline has been a big benefactor in helping him adapt to different environments and boasts “ I am a fighter in all aspects of the word… as far as fighting goes, I can do that anywhere.” There are some perks though, he admits “ Even when I’m out with my family people come up and ask for pictures and want to talk because they’ve seen me on TV, which I like because my children see that hard work is noticed.”
While the recognition is nice, Boyd claims his motivation comes from just being a competitor at heart as well as his personal frustrations in life. “ I love my family but they aren’t my motivation to keep fighting, they motivate me to do stuff I really don’t like doing so we don’t end up on the street,” Boyd jokes.
He also elaborated on the anger that drives him, revealing: “My father has Alzheimer’s so I have to take care of him, I have to rely on people I don’t really know to teach my children because I’m not in a position to do so myself full time, and people are stupid. All the more reason to kick somebody in the face.”
When all the craziness from the pandemic subsides Omari Boyd is striving for a shot at the belt, and judging from his 6-1 record in the GLORY ring it looks like that may be a very reasonable request in the near future.
