FOR another fighter coming off a primary skilled loss, any win would have sufficed. However, for Lawrence Okolie, a person who has made a behavior of successful fights however shedding followers, there was by no means any query as to what he wanted from tonight’s (May 24) WBC bridgerweight title problem in Poland. The fact is, he wanted to do extra than simply beat Lucasz Rozanski, the champion, in order to breathe life into his profession once more. He wanted to beat him in a fashion that stood out and caught the attention. He wanted to make a press release.
This was all a part of the plan going in, one thing to which Okolie alluded when talking to Boxing News on Tuesday night. He then confirmed the small print of the plan simply hours earlier than the struggle when claiming his goal – that’s, his ideally suited end result – could be a first-round stoppage, guaranteeing each a fast evening and a return to the power-punching exploits of outdated.
That he was capable of go on and safe this ideally suited end result, halting Rozanski on the 2:55 mark of spherical one after dropping him thrice, speaks volumes. It is a testomony not solely to Okolie’s self-belief – one thing that no doubt wanted repairing after shedding his WBO cruiserweight title final yr – but additionally his punch energy, which, in fact, has by no means actually been in doubt. Certainly, on the proof tonight, Rozanski had by no means been hit fairly as laborious or as precisely; the look on his face following the primary Okolie proper hand a lifeless giveaway. He complained alongside the way in which that some proper arms have been touchdown across the again of the pinnacle, but the fact is that Okolie was simply too massive, too lengthy, too sharp and too exact with that exact shot: the proper. When letting it go, he would invariably unsettle Rozanski, even in the primary minute, and it wasn’t lengthy in truth earlier than the Pole was dropped to the canvas on account of the sheer power of it. The first knockdown was clear, the second a bit messier, whereas the third, undoubtedly the decide of the bunch, noticed Okolie flip his straight proper hand into an uppercut, piercing Rozanski’s guard and inflicting him to pretzel up alongside the underside rope, his senses properly and really scrambled.
He did, to his credit score, handle to make it to his ft, Rozanski, however the referee, Daniel Van de Wiele, took one look into the champion’s eyes and realised the wise choice now was to keep away from the inevitable. Which is exactly what he did, waving the struggle off inside three minutes.
Thirteen months in the past, after all, the shoe was on the opposite foot, with Rozanski catching Allen Babic chilly and forcing a first-round stoppage to win this very belt, the WBC bridgerweight crown. Tonight, nonetheless, he actually had no reply for Okolie and it turned clear reasonably rapidly that Okolie may be very a lot a degree above the likes of Rozanski and Babic and that solely the introduction of the bridgerweight weight class, sandwiched as it’s between cruiserweight and heavyweight, would handle to supply a struggle like this; a mismatch masquerading as a world title struggle.
It stays to be seen the place Okolie, 20-1 (15), now goes from right here. On the one hand, tonight’s efficiency was a reminder of the 31-year-old’s punch energy and his spectacular athletic capability, but, however, it additionally served as a stark reminder of simply what bridgerweight presently represents on the world stage. That is to say, it’s nonetheless very a lot a division in its infancy, with its expertise pool quick on expertise, and subsequently it will nearly be a disgrace if Okolie, somebody who claims his cruiserweight days are behind him, sticks round there too lengthy. His hope, he informed me earlier this week, is that a number of the British cruiserweights may quickly be a part of him at bridgerweight, however that might simply be a case of wishful considering.
“I do think with the bridgerweight belt, if any of them felt like they wanted to come up and have a little bit of a go there, they could,” he stated on Tuesday. “I know (Richard) Riakporhe is probably going to struggle for weight, and I know Chris (Billam-Smith) is as well. If they wanted to dance at bridgerweight, we could do that. But we’ll see.”
Either approach, Okolie ought to tonight be praised for successful a struggle he wanted to win and in addition successful it in the style in which it wanted to be gained. That, for any fighter, is one thing all the time simpler stated than achieved, but for somebody like Lawrence Okolie, a person of whom a lot is predicted and a person whose wins have in the previous typically been unsatisfactory, this was arguably essentially the most essential victory of his profession to this point.
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