Big Brother Naija Season 7 winner Ijeoma Josephina Otabor, known as Phyna, has explained how she knocked out actress Nkechi Blessing in their celebrity boxing bout, saying she leaned on logic and movement rather than raw power.
The fight was the first female celebrity boxing bout at the Chaos in the Ring event in Lagos on October 1, 2026. Speaking in an interview with content creator Egungun, Phyna said she noticed early that Nkechi was the bigger fighter and refused to turn the contest into a test of strength.
“Everything is not by power, everything is not by ‘I have more power.’ Sometimes, you need to apply what we call logic,” she said.
She added that size forced a different plan.
“She has a mightier size than me. So, as a smart girl, I applied wisdom and refused to be led by anger, but by wisdom.”
Phyna said she trained for only 10 days, with her coach building her boxing skills in that short window. Once they stepped into the ring, she changed approach again. Her coach had taught her a conventional guard, but Nkechi did not hold her hands like someone ready to box.
“That was when I understood that, ‘okay, she wants to make it a street fight,’ because she knows they’ll be slow to call her fouls,” Phyna said.
She studied Nkechi’s movement while her coach kept telling her to stay mobile. The plan, she said, was already set before the opening bell.
“I was having fun. It ended too fast. I promised her something. I said, ‘I will use you to run around, run around, run around, run around… I will use you to rub the ground.’”
Asked about a rematch, Phyna shut the idea down.
“Rematch? There’s no need. In life, they say, ‘Children, obey thy parent so your days may be long.’ I don’t disrespect her, so curse will not follow me.”
She joked that former housemate Wathoni Anyansi and actress Etinosa Idemudia had been pressing her for respect, and left the door open to facing Etinosa instead.
Nkechi Blessing, for her part, has said she is not a professional boxer, trained for only two days, and wants to return to acting. The same Chaos in the Ring card also saw Carter Efe defeat Speed Darlington.