Lawrence Okolie is excited to paint on a blank canvas again

By Elliot Worsell

FOR a boxer, not often is the perfect opponent somebody they both love or hate. Instead, the perfect opponent tends to fall between proper these two extremes, touchdown someplace in a sea of indifference.

Anywhere else, you see, there is hazard. If, for instance, you occur to take pleasure in the corporate of an opponent, there is each probability you’ll hesitate when the second comes to do harm to them. Similarly, if hate, a much more widespread emotion in a sport like boxing, has reached such a stage that you’re determined to display your hatred for this opponent in a authorized method, it is simply as doubtless that your animosity will backfire and adversely have an effect on your efficiency.

In the case of Lawrence Okolie, the previous WBO cruiserweight champion, the problem final 12 months was extra the previous than the latter. In reality, when going through Chris Billam-Smith, his pal and former gymnasium mate, Okolie was put in essentially the most uncommon and unenviable of positions, one which, for a boxer, virtually redefines what it is they do for a residing. After all, having for therefore lengthy been accustomed to inflicting harm on unfamiliar opponents, all of the sudden Okolie was being instructed to inflict the identical type of harm on somebody he would, in a really perfect world, by no means need to damage. Suddenly his enemy had a title, a face, a coronary heart.

Suffice it to say, this twist on an previous routine left Okolie slightly misplaced. Not solely that, with him softened already by his rise to world champion, the 31-year-old Londoner, at a time when he wanted motivation and maybe one thing or someone to hate, discovered himself drifting in a means that is by no means good for a boxer.

“I was just being lackadaisical,” he instructed Boxing News on Tuesday (May 21). “I wasn’t actually taking it for what it is.

“Being a world champion got here fairly simply to me. Obviously, I put in a lot of arduous work to get there, however going via the amateurs after which the professional scene all simply felt fairly simple to me. It felt like I simply had to present up and get it achieved.

“Although I did train hard for that (Billam-Smith) fight, I also understood that there would come a time when making that weight (cruiserweight; 200 pounds) would affect me and I knew that I also had to be 100% switched on to get the job done against Chris. But I didn’t feel locked in, if I’m honest. When I was seeing Chris, I was never thinking, Right, I’m going to box this guy, this is what I need to do. When I see (Lucasz) Rozanski (Okolie’s next opponent), that’s how I feel. I’m thinking, Right, I’m going to smash him and do this and do that. I might not say it to him, or anyone, but I have those kinds of feelings. With Chris, though, I just thought, Oh, there’s Chris. I’m going to fight him at the weekend. It was a very different feeling.”

Leaving Bournemouth that evening there was a feeling that Okolie’s proper to a rematch could be ignored due to the messy nature of the combat, which, if true, would have achieved little for the crushed man’s drive or certainly his self-belief. What is extra, the sensation that he was being sidelined or phased out was hardly what Okolie wanted when, in 2024, plotting the best way again following his first profession loss.

“It took some time,” he recalled. “I thought I would go straight back into the rematch but that never happened. Then I was going to sack off boxing altogether and just carry on doing what I was doing outside of boxing. But I got the call to spar Joseph Parker for (Deontay) Wilder and that experience kind of reignited the flame in December. I was like, You know what, this is a top five heavyweight preparing for the biggest fight of his life and I’m a former cruiserweight world champion who has had some time off and we’re doing some good sparring. Joe (Gallagher) was also in the corner telling me good stuff and we spoke and kind of took it from there.”

Before getting to Joe Gallagher, arguably boxing’s primary motivator, Okolie had to first discover some motivation from inside. Which is to say, he wanted to ask himself some robust questions and uncover whether or not, when push got here to shove, he actually needed to proceed within the sport.

“I had such different motivations when I was coming up,” he admitted. “I was just thinking, Oh, am I going to make a million pounds? Am I going to win a world title? But then you get to a point where it has all happened and it wasn’t really giving me any fulfilment. Now I feel like when I win this belt (against Rozanski) it’s going to mean more to me. The training and the stuff I have had to do in the gym is what makes this win so important to me.”

Asked level blank if he is nonetheless in love with boxing, Okolie, 19-1 (14), stated: “I like boxing; not a lot the enterprise facet, however I perceive the enterprise has to be achieved.

“I used to be prepared to go straight into the rematch (towards Billam-Smith), however sooner or later each fighter realises what boxing is: it’s a enterprise. The break day has now modified my life for the higher. I used to be in a position to see my son get born and I used to be in a position to be extra current for a number of the different stuff I’ve arrange to make life after boxing a little extra snug. Now after I field, it’s not for cash. Obviously, I would like to receives a commission, don’t get me fallacious, but it surely’s not like I want boxing to assist me in that means.

“I’ve sort of simply understood that at this stage in my life I’m higher off with it (boxing) than with out it. I don’t want boxing to pay my payments, but it surely does make my life a lot higher. I’ll be strolling round and folks might be asking me for footage, so it satisfies that ego facet. I can’t lie.

“Also, there aren’t many things I am world-class at. Boxing is one of them. I’m always going to push it because one thing I don’t want in my life is regret. With every fight I have won, and even the one fight I have lost, I never regretted anything afterwards. I genuinely tried my best in every fight and put as much work into it as I could. It’s the same with this fight (against Rozanski). What I don’t want is to turn 35 and be thinking to myself, I stopped boxing at 31, but I might have been able to do something in the last four years. I just want to push it as far and as hard as I can and find out. All the stuff I love outside of boxing is still going to be there when I finish, but boxing won’t be there for me in a few years.”

Lawrence Okolie with the WBO cruiserweight belt

Upon coming to this realisation, Okolie began coaching with Gallagher at his Manchester gymnasium in December. There, surrounded by boxers of all ages and ranges, Okolie was greater than the remaining solely in as far as stature. That apart, he was simply one other boxer doing drills; one other boxer making an attempt to show himself; one other boxer the remainder of the gymnasium felt they might beat.

“Since I’ve been in this camp, Joe has really been forcing me to do everything,” Okolie stated. “I’m speaking monitor, versaclimber, bar bag, and simply arduous, arduous work. If you don’t need it, this is the place you’re going to discover out. If you don’t need it, you’ll get to a level on the bar bag the place you simply assume, F**ok this, and simply stroll out. But we’ve gritted it out and that can present on the evening, I feel.

“I can only compare it to being in a gym with young, hungry fighters. Everybody else is doing the hard stuff, so you’re forced to do the same. I’ve put in the work. I think in this fight I’ll show a bit of it, but in the next fight I’ll show a lot more.”

Lawrence Okolie and Joe Gallagher

First issues first, to hold his profession going Okolie should defeat the unbeaten Lucasz Rozanski this Friday (May 24) in Rzeszow, Poland. Do that and Okolie won’t solely be up and operating again, however he can have additionally marked his arrival at bridgerweight (220 kilos) with a WBC title, making him a two-weight world champion earlier than the age of 32. Some, after all, will need to apply an asterisk to that on account of the bridgerweight division being a relative toddler within the boxing world, however Okolie received’t care about such quibbles at this stage. All he cares about is the truth that he has a date, an opponent, and a goal. More importantly, this goal is one totally unfamiliar; faceless, virtually.

“So far it feels good,” he stated of being in Poland. “I’ll be trustworthy, it appears like I’m right here for a job. There are not any dwelling comforts or any of that stuff. I’m simply right here to do a job. It permits me to assume solely about going on the market and executing my job. I be ok with that.

“Obviously I would like to win for myself and my family and friends, however finally all I’ve to do now is simply go and win a boxing match. I simply have to go in there and execute. The solely means to win this combat is to win it properly. Nothing lower than that can do.

“With this one I don’t know the guy. When I look at him, I don’t feel anything. There’s no backstory. He is just another boxer who can throw a double-jab, right hand combination. That’s all I have to think about. I don’t have to think about what my old coach is up to. I can just stick to the fight itself, and we’ll see how that translates on the day.”

As for the transfer up in weight, Okolie, somebody without end tipped to finally land at heavyweight, sees it as a part of his pure development. Not simply that, with him now in his thirties, the concept of some leeway turned virtually a necessity.

“It’s been a lot better, I’ll tell you that,” he stated. “There’s no way I could have made cruiserweight again. I still have to make bridgerweight but today, for example, I have had the opportunity to rest. I never usually get the opportunity to rest before a fight. I would always have to do something as a cruiserweight. But now I can rest a little bit and I think that’s going to pay dividends on the night in terms of my explosiveness.”

Lawrence Okolie (Ian Walton/Matchroom Boxing)

If certainly that is true, the prospect of a return to Lawrence Okolie being explosive might be as alluring to boxing followers because it is terrifying to potential opponents. “I think that comes with the territory,” he stated when requested concerning the strain to produce a massive knockout each time. “I’m a massive, robust man and I ought to be doing it. In this specific combat, the man is going to come out and take a look at to do it to me, so I’ve to stamp myself on him early. He’s not (Oleksandr) Usyk, or one in every of these gifted boxers; he’s a brawler who is going to come and throw bombs. If I don’t put him beneath manners and knock him out, he’s going to be aiming to try this to me.

“When I execute correctly, this is the perfect model for somebody like me. When I field guys who’ve his dimensions and elegance, it’s the most effective as a result of I can land at will and I’m quick sufficient to keep away from their photographs. You can solely wait and see what it’s like beneath the lights on the evening, however I do assume he is tailored for a massive KO loss.

“I want to go out there and make a statement because there is a lot of talking going on, even from him. I used the Google translator on some of the stuff he has been saying and I think it will be nice for him to feel what I’m about.”

If ultimately Lucasz Rozanski is the one to really feel it, it’s the remainder of us, those watching from positions of relative security, who will want to see – or just be reminded of – what Lawrence Okolie is all about.