RATHER than lazily name Joe Gallagher the restore man, or counsel he’s boxing’s go-to fixer-upper, it could be higher evaluating him to somebody like Quentin Tarantino, whose favorite factor within the nineties was to revamp the careers of actors and actresses deemed to have light into obscurity. This Tarantino managed to do with not solely John Travolta in Pulp Fiction, but in addition Pam Grier and Robert Forster in Jackie Brown, and Gallagher, within the boxing world, has a behavior of doing related.
In the previous the Manchester coach has performed his half within the unlikely turnarounds of Matthew Macklin, Paul Smith, and Anthony Crolla, and now, in 2024, Gallagher is at it once more. This time the fighter is Lawrence Okolie and this time the challenge is a straightforward one: carry out the perfect in a former WBO cruiserweight champion many individuals have determined to jot down off.
They seem as an unlikely couple in so some ways, Okolie and Gallagher, but the extra you concentrate on what Gallagher can provide and what Okolie wants, the extra this link-up begins to make sense. Moreover, once you keep in mind the way it took place, in addition to Okolie’s present scenario, it begins to make much more sense.
“He did some sparring with Joe Parker before Parker fought Deontay Wilder, and I was there in the gym and he asked me to help him in the corner,” Gallagher defined to Boxing News. “I mentioned, ‘Yeah, no problem.’ I did a few issues within the nook with him, mentioned a number of issues, and he went out and carried out the directions.
“Then he came visiting to Saudi earlier this 12 months and did a bit of coaching with me. We bought on effectively. He’s very coachable and takes issues on board. He learns in a short time. He listens and adapts effectively. I mentioned to him, ‘I need to get you over to Manchester – Champs Camp, Moss Side – and put you through your paces there as well.’
“With Lawrence it has organically grown. We get each other and he understands what he has to do. I also wanted to see at the beginning of it all whether Lawrence was doing it just for the sake of doing it or whether he had that grit and that fire in his belly to prove a point. I said to him, ‘You’ve got to question yourself.’ Once we got news of this next fight (against Lukasz Rozanski in Poland), we knew we were going into a right cauldron of an arena and I said to him, ‘You have to know you are doing this for the right reasons.’ He has to want to prove a point. So far, that’s the feeling I am getting. He has done everything I have asked of him in training and I really feel he has that fire in his belly.”
Okolie loses his WBO cruiserweight belt towards Chris Billam-Smith (Getty Images)
Thrown in on the deep finish, comparatively talking, the primary check for Okolie and Gallagher will certainly arrive on May 24 in Poland of all locations. That’s the place Okolie will problem Lukasz Rozanski, a local of Rzeszow and the present proprietor of the WBC bridgerweight title, and that’s the place Okolie’s profession will, for so long as the battle lasts, hold within the steadiness. Win and Okolie, 19-1 (14), is again; again with a belt round his waist and again on the radar of many fighters, both at cruiserweight, bridgerweight, or heavyweight. Lose, nonetheless, and Okolie, now 31, is aware of he will likely be a fighter simple for the boxing institution to rapidly overlook.
“This is like Matthew Macklin’s first fight with me,” mentioned Gallagher. “He was coming off a detailed choice towards Geard Ajetovic and lots of people had been saying, ‘He’s not going to do something, Macklin.’ His first battle with me was towards Wayne Elcock and we completely ripped the title away that night time. In his subsequent battle he received the European title and then he went on to battle Felix Sturm for the world title and ought to have develop into world champion.
“It’s the identical right here with Lawrence. This is our first battle collectively and there’ll be no heat up for it. We’re going right into a cauldron and he’s entering into there off the again of dropping his world title and receiving a load of social media stick. His again is towards the wall, career-wise and fight-wise, and he’s going into a brand new division and not combating a mug, both. He’s combating somebody who’s damaging and highly effective and has simply destroyed Alen Babic in a spherical. He’s there as a world champion. They clearly suppose Okolie is the fitting opponent for a profitable defence in Poland and we have now to go in there and go for the knockout and show individuals improper. We have to point out them that Okolie isn’t completed. Far from it.
“It’s an exciting project. I like it when they say, ‘He won’t do anything,’ and then they go on to do something special.”
Joe Gallagher watches on from the nook at York Hall, Bethnal Green on December 3, 2021 (James Chance/Getty Images)
To do “something special” one imagines Okolie must hear rather less to himself and the intrusive voices in his head and a bit extra to Gallagher, somebody adept at making a fighter really feel 10-feet tall. Do that and the Londoner then has an opportunity to take advantage of some distinctive bodily presents, in addition to the sort of energy most fighters would do something to own.
“There are things Lawrence can do, that he has shown me he can do, and there are also things he has to learn and understand,” mentioned Gallagher. “He must study and perceive why individuals accuse him of hugging and he wants to take a look at the explanation why he does this or does that.
“We’ve simply been breaking it down collectively and understanding issues. We then put him in these positions on a regular basis to verify he doesn’t do that or do this. It’s a piece in progress, after all, and it’s a results-based enterprise. Come May twenty fourth we’ll discover out if the result’s the fitting consequence.
“He’s an Olympian and has been a world champion, yet people think he is finished. When you look at the likes of Matthew Macklin, Paul Smith, Anthony Crolla, they have all been written off by people at some stage but have come back and proven those people wrong. It’s another one of those let’s-go-and-show-the-world-they’re-wrong stories.”
Although nonetheless on chapter one, the early indicators are encouraging.
“He’s been here in Manchester (at Champs Camp) for a good four weeks,” Gallagher revealed. “He’s enjoying being in the gym and being around the other fighters. He’s been sparring Callum Johnson and Jack Massey and is also training alongside young and hungry kids. I think he likes being in a team environment again, which is something he relished in the GB format. He thrived in that environment, didn’t he? Maybe he isn’t a kid who likes to train on his own.”
As simple as it’s to poke enjoyable, each at Okolie and his new coach, if you happen to take the time to ask any Joe Gallagher-trained fighters the perks of being concerned with him you’ll quickly uncover that considered one of them is normally this: by no means do you are feeling both alone or unsupported.
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