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Youngstown’s Davis Oracio Jr. quickly becomes kickboxing champion
Davis Oracio Jr. is a fast climber in pro kickboxing
By charles grove
Youngstown’s Davis Oracio Jr. has a new addition to his wardrobe, a lavish title belt.
Oracio, 29, is into his first month as the light heavyweight kickboxing world champion. It’s quite an accomplishment for a guy who’s only fought three fights professionally.
“It is nice to be considered the best at something,” Oracio said. “But I don’t consider myself to be the best until I defend it at least once or twice.”
In the ring itself, Oracio has only been a professional for a few minutes. None of his fights have even entered the second round.
“I’m a striker,” Oracio said. “I’m a stand up fighter. I go for knockouts each time, win or lose. People pay for a show and I’m not getting paid by the round.”
How does one land a title fight after just a couple of professional bouts? You fight the best.
“I fight the top guys,” Oracio said. “I don’t want to fight bums. I fight the best guys they give me. A lot of people don’t like [my title] because I’ve only got a few fights but it doesn’t matter to me.”
Oracio has gone all in on professional fighting. After plenty of success at the amateur level, Oracio quit his job and hasn’t looked back since.
“It’s just what I’m good at,” Oracio said. “As an amateur I won fights without even training. It just came to me naturally. So I figured as a professional let’s see what happens if I actually try.”
Andrew Boehlke, who owns Campbell Martial Arts in Youngstown, has been training Oracio for 12 years. Back then Oracio was learning mixed martial arts and karate. Boehlke said he knew Oracio was going to be successful at fighting, but the fact that the success has happened hasn’t quite hit him yet.
“It’s not even real,” Boehlke said. “I knew when he walked in here he’d do it I just didn’t know it’d be with me. After he won the belt I nearly cried in my car. I met him as a 17 year old kid with a dream and now he’s a world champion. It still hasn’t hit me yet.”
Oracio credits Boehlke’s training as a large reason for his title fight success. Oracio was trained for a significantly longer fight than the one that he ended up fighting and that endurance paid off.
“Originally I was training for five three-minute rounds but my opponent got injured,” Oracio said. “I was training to stretch the fight out and make sure I didn’t gas out. When my opponent got changed the new guy wanted a three-round fight instead. So the good thing was since I trained for five I could go all out the entire fight.”
Confidence wasn’t lacking when Oracio stepped into the ring.
“I knew I was going to win,” Oracio said. “I knew it was going to be the fight of the night.”
The title defense won’t happen until just after the new year. So how does one get away from the monotony of training without any fights in the near future?
“My goal is to get two MMA fights before then,” Oracio said. “My goal is to be different. I want a belt in MMA, I want a belt in kickboxing and I want a belt in boxing.”
The training isn’t light. Oracio goes about three hours in the morning and the evening five days a week. He gets about 10-15 sparring rounds those days and on Saturdays he spars for 20 rounds - both in kickboxing and MMA.
“My ground game is just as good it’s just not as exciting,” Oracio said. “I train five days a week in grappling. But since MMA guys will try to grapple with you I’m very confident if I’m standing and striking in those situations.”