JONATHAN KUMUTEO celebrated his successful professional debut by handing himself a social media ban.

The Finchley Super-Welterweight made a winning start to his professional career by easily outpointing Dale Arrowsmith last month, an experience he compared to being like a “video game”.

Kumuteo has over sixty thousand Instagram followers but decided on a temporary exile after his win on the Queensberry show televised live on BT Sport.

His battles beating a skin disease over the last six years that needed three surgeries and once left him bed bound for eight months threatened his boxing career, but Kumuteo defied the odds.

He said: “For the last few years my body has not been able to relax. I have been able to put my body to rest, shut my eyes and sleep but my mind is never at ease.

“For the first time I have ticked off every single box in terms of my aims and objectives in 2016 when I fell severely ill for the second time.

“In this generation that we live in when people achieve great things, good things, bad things the very first thing they do is go to social media and announce it to the world.

“In my case the last thing I wanted to be was on social media even though I have just achieved my childhood dream to become a professional fighter, win and box on one of the biggest platforms in the world.

“I have just wanted to spend time with my three little sisters and my Mum. They are why I do this.

“I couldn’t care less about social media right now. I know I won after three years out of the ring. I came out and beat a good opponent for my introduction to the world of professional boxing.

“Over the last few years I have had a lot of pressure from family to pursue a different career, but I stuck by my guns even though at times I may have looked stubborn, ignorant and naïve.”

Kumuteo is enjoying short break in Scotland, but returns to the gym next week and hopes promoter Frank Warren will give him a date for his second professional fight.

Even though his debut was on a behind closed doors show, Kumuteo was shocked when he stepped between the ropes at York Hall, Bethnal Green and saw Arrowsmith across the ring.

“I honestly thought I was in a video game,” explained the 25-year-old who arrived in London aged seven after escaping war-ravaged Democratic of Congo.

“I am not generally a nervous person because I have been through so much. It’s like they have been taken out of me.

“Doing my short ringwalk I was fine, but when I got in the ring and saw the bright lights around the venue. I thought I was in a video game.

“I saw the 32Red logo, a bright blue canvas and everything on point. I seriously thought I was in a game.

“Then it hit me, and I thought, ‘I’m in a fight.’ I still didn’t feel like I was actually in the fight — just the video game.

“As soon as we touched gloves it hit me that fight time had come.

“I believe I controlled the fight and everything was off my jab. The foundations were there, but next time I need to up the gears.”

JONATHAN KUMUTEO left reality TV host Judge Rinder out for the count when he made a side-splitting appearance on his smash hit ITV show.

Now it’s boxing judges he needs to KO by impressing with his fists.

The Queensberry promoted Super-Welterweight who makes his professional debut on Friday April 30 appeared on Judge Rinder recently after asking him to settle a dispute with close pal Timi Anunlopo.

Kumuteo and his friend had initially refused Love Island offers, but asked what other shows were available. When producers mentioned Judge Rinder, Kumuteo told them: “Timi crashed my car.”

Jonathan, 25, explained that they’re still the best of friends, but were told as long as there is evidence of the car crash they could be booked for the popular afternoon TV show.

The former London amateur champion provided receipts and messages claiming the damage to his Range Rover that cost him £3156.36 to repair had been caused by his friend.

Kumuteo had his hand raised in the TV courtroom when Judge Rinder deducted 20% of the claim, but still awarded him £2525.09 which was paid by ITV.

He said: “I told Timi that if I won the case it would pay for a holiday for us, but unfortunately I haven’t held my end of the bargain, but I blame the pandemic.

“Hopefully we will be able to fly out sometime after the fight. Turkey is possible or we might do a little European tour.”

The host and TV audience were captivated by Kumuteo and Anunlopo’s humour.

Judge Rinder was stunned when the Kumuteo used language like ‘fam,’ street slang for someone you are close to and ‘Bad B’s’ which the boxer said meant ‘Bad and Bijou’ in reference to the women Timi dates.

Finchley’s Kumuteo added: “Honestly I was nervous leading up to it. You don’t meet Judge Rinder until you walk on the set.

“He shouts at a lot of people and I thought; ‘Damn, our case is quite silly. We might be in trouble from him, but I think it worked in our favour.

“It was a very enjoyable experience doing the show which was filmed at Media City, Manchester.

“You don’t even meet him after he makes the ruling. You do the interview afterwards and you go home.

“The team who work the show said that Judge Rinder enjoyed it and reckoned it had been one of the best in the last couple of years.”

Judge Rinder was also shocked when it emerged during the case that he was a neighbour of Kumuteo’s in well-heeled north London suburb Finchley.

“When the crowds return I am definitely going to send him a ticket to sit ringside and hopefully he will be there,” says Kumuteo.

In the main event of the behind closed doors London card brilliant South African Moruti Mthalane (39-2, 26 KOs) defends his IBF World Flyweight championship against Croydon’s Sunny Edwards (15-0, 4 KOs).

In a ten rounder, Belfast’s Michael Conlan (14-0, 8 KOs) faces dangerous Romanian Ionut Balata (14-2, 3 KOs).

Darlington’s Troy Williamson (15-0-1, 11 KOs) faces Scot Kieran Smith (16-0, 7 KOs) in a final eliminator for the British Super-Welterweight title, held by Ted Cheeseman.

Southampton Super-Featherweight Ryan Garner (9-0, 6 KOs) and Reading Super-Welterweight Joshua Frankham (2-0) are also in action. Joshua’s cousin, Levi Frankham is the second debutant on the bill besides Kumuteo.

FORMER SUCCESSFUL AMATEUR Jonathan Kumuteo is set to turn professional under the promotional guidance of Frank Warren and Queensberry Promotions.

The 24-year-old DR Congo-born welterweight will enter the pro ranks working from the Bushey base of trainer Josh Burnham.

Preparing to embark on his professional journey working hard in solitary at his gym, Kumuteo insists the launch of his career and continued development couldn’t be in better hands.

In his first interview as a Queensberry fighter, Kumuteo spoke to Dev Sahni here.

“It means a lot because signing with Queensberry and Frank means I am with one of the biggest companies in the UK and Europe. To have the platform and backing is a dream come true.”

Kumuteo, who describes himself as ‘an aggressive counter-puncher’ enjoyed success in the amateur ranks with victory in the London Novice u20 championships and was a finalist in the National Novice championships, clocking up 28 fights as an amateur.

However, his amateur experience was punctuated by the suffering of Hidradenitis Suppurativa, (HS), which is a chronic inflammatory skin disease, for a little over four years.?

The condition affected his ability to compete in tournaments, as well as his availability to accept international recognition by both England and DRC.

“I started boxing in 2012 and it affected me for over half of my amateur career,” explained Kumuteo, who hails from Finchley. “I had three operations, the most recent being in November 2018, which I have fully recovered from.

“The first operation was minor, but the second was a particularly depressing time where I lost all my strength and literally had to rebuild from scratch. I remember first going back to the gym when I couldn’t even bench-press ten reps with no weights.

“I still boxed and lost in the London Alliance finals before following up with my dermatologist to determine the best course of action with regards to boxing again. The skin around my under arms was very weak and would always tear open.

“Sometimes I could train and sometimes I couldn’t. In my opinion I should have had at least 60-plus bouts in the amateurs but wasn’t able to due to all the time out.

“I was then advised I would need skin graft surgery if I wished to pursue a boxing career. I recovered for three months and have been in the gym ever since February 2019 training for my professional debut.

“When having to go through the pain I had to go through and still boxing for four years I found there were people going through similar situations and winning with it. When I found this out I stopped complaining and got on with everything.

“Now I am completely healed and free from medication I feel I am going to be unstoppable because if I can win the London Novice championships taking heavy medication every day, what would I have been like now that I am good?”

It was a similar will to win and an insatiable competitive streak that first led him to lacing up and stepping into the ring in the first place.

“As a youngster I was always highly competitive and if there could be a winner – in whatever it was – I always wanted to win.

“A friend of mine challenged me to spar him down at the local boxing club and initially I wasn’t interested. I decided to give it a go after a few more challenges and I fell in love with sport instantly and joined Finchley ABC.”

When he is not boxing, Kumuteo, who enjoys a sizeable following on social media thanks in no small way to sharing his experience of HS, likes to turn his hand to creative forms of media to share with his followers.

“I put that down to being creative and always thinking outside of the box. I am actually interested in photography and videography and I like to cast myself as being creative. I am always studying anything to do it, whether it be in sport, fashion and whatever.

“My own Instagram page is unlike anyone else’s and I call it a seamless feed because all my images connect. No matter image I upload, it is almost like a collage and whatever the size the images all connect one by one.

“I hope my boxing is seamless as well,” he continued, adding in a career goal for good measure.

“I know I can perform and I have the potential. With the right team, like Frank Warren and Queensberry, I believe I can go all the way.

“I have been training and the bag has become my best friend during lockdown. I am ready to go.”