ABUJA, Nigeria — The first strikes in Dambe are thrown before the boxers even leave their house. Fighters don charms and amulets, dye their fist or even score their arm with a razor, inserting ...

The dambe boxer Tijjani Zakari wraps his arm in cord before a fight during the Nigeria Traditional Boxing League season finals, in Kano, Nigeria, April 29, 2018. Dambe, a generations-old, West African ...

In the early summer of 2002, Abubakar Usman made his debut as a Dambe fighter in Kebbi, a state in northwest Nigeria. Usman, who was 15 at the time, had been surreptitiously learning the sport’s rules ...

Abuja, Nigeria – Just off the motorway that links the Italian stone mansions of the Nigerian capital’s pricey Minister’s Hill neighbourhood to the settlements of corrugated-tin roof shacks on the ...

Dambe fighters during an amateur match in the Dei-Dei neighbourhood in Abuja, on June 27, 2025. Photo by OLYMPIA DE MAISMONT / AFP. The first strikes in Dambe are thrown before the boxers even leave ...

Pakistan, June 30 -- The first strikes in Dambe are thrown before the boxers even leave their house. Fighters don charms and amulets, dye their fist or even score their arm with a razor, inserting ...

Fighters don charms and amulets, dye their fist or even score their arm with a razor, inserting traditional medicine before it scars over -- all guaranteed to protect them in the ring or deliver a ...

Abuja: The first strikes in Dambe are thrown before the boxers even leave their house. Fighters don charms and amulets, dye their fist or even score their arm with a razor, inserting traditional ...