By Elliot Worcel
Love or hate is rarely the ideal opponent for a boxer. Rather, the ideal opponent tends to fall somewhere between the two extremes, settling somewhere in a sea of indifference.
Danger exists elsewhere. For example, if something like this happens enjoy When you're with an enemy, there's a good chance you'll hesitate when the moment comes to deal damage to them. Similarly, if hatred, a much more common emotion in a sport like boxing, reaches such a level that a person becomes desperate to demonstrate their hatred for this opponent in a legitimate way, that hostility may backfire. There is just as much potential for negative effects. your performance.
For former WBO cruiserweight champion Lawrence Okolie, the problem last year was more the former than the latter. In fact, Okolie was put in a most unusual and unenviable position when he played against his friend and former gymmate Chris Billum-Smith. It was a position for boxers that almost redefined what they did for a living. After all, Okolie, who had long been used to inflicting damage on strangers, was suddenly asked to inflict the same kind of damage on someone he would never want to hurt in an ideal world. Suddenly his enemy had a name, a face, and a heart.
Suffice it to say, this twist on the old routine left Okolie pretty lost. Not only that, but the 31-year-old Londoner was already soothed by his rise to world champion status, at a time when he needed motivation and perhaps something.One I started hating it and found myself drifting in a direction that was never good for a boxer.
“I was just being lazy,” he said. boxing news Tuesday (May 21st). “I didn’t take it for what it was.
“Becoming a world champion was a no-brainer for me. Of course I put in a lot of effort to get there, but going through the amateurs and into the professional scene all came very easily for me. It felt like I just had to show up and get it done.
“I trained really hard for that (Billam vs. Smith) fight, but I also knew that there would come a time when making that weight (cruiserweight, 200 pounds) would affect me and I 100% wanted to make the switch. I also knew I had to go in” to get the job done against Chris. But to be honest, I didn't feel trapped. I never thought of this when I was watching Chris. Yeah, box this guy down, this is what I'm supposed to do.. I think so when I look at (Lukasz) Rozanski (Okolie's next opponent). thinking about, Yeah, I'm gonna beat him up and do this and that.I may not tell him or anyone, but I feel that way. But as for Chris, Oh, there's Chris.I'm going to fight him this weekend.It was a very different feeling.”
Friends again: Lawrence Okolie and Chris Billam-Smith embrace after the match at Bournemouth on May 27, 2023 (Luke Walker/Getty Images)
Leaving Bournemouth that night, there was a sense that Okolie's right to a rematch would be ignored due to the nasty nature of the match, but if that was true, it would have been more likely than not that the beaten man's willingness and his actual It would have done little for his confidence. Moreover, the feeling of being sidelined and phased out was hardly necessary for Okolie, who was planning on coming back from his first career loss in 2024.
“It took a while,” he recalls. “I thought I was going to go back for a rematch right away, but that never happened. Then I was going to quit boxing completely and continue doing what I was doing outside of boxing. But (Deontay) Wilder's Joseph Parker I was invited to spar with him, and that experience reignited the fire in December. You know, this is a top five heavyweight fighter preparing for the biggest fight of his life. I'm a former Cruiserweight World Champion, I've been taking some time off and I've been doing some good sparring.. Joe (Gallagher) was also in the corner and said some good things, so we talked it over and took it from there. ”
Before he could reach out to Joe Gallagher, arguably the number one motivator in boxing, Okolie first had to find motivation from within himself, which meant asking himself some tough questions and determining if he really wanted to continue in the sport when pushed.
“I had a completely different motivation going into it,” 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 everything happens and you get to a point where you don't really get any fulfillment from it. Now I feel like if I win this belt (against Rozanski), it will mean so much more to me. The training and what I had to do in the gym is what makes this win so important to me.”
Asked point-blank if he still loves boxing, Okolie, who is 19-1 (14), responded: “Not the business side of it, but I understand that business has to be done.”
“I was ready for the rematch[with Billam Smith]right away, but at some point every fighter realizes what boxing is about: it's a business. It's changed things for the better. I was able to see my son's birth and be more present for some of the other things I've started to make life a little easier after boxing. Now, I don't box for money. Of course I want to get paid, don't get me wrong, but boxing doesn't need that kind of support.
“I kind of realized that at this stage in my life, boxing is better than not boxing. I don’t need boxing to pay the bills, but To do Please make my life better. As I walk around, people ask me for pictures, which satisfies my ego side. I won't lie.
“Also, there aren't many things I've done that are world-class. Boxing is one of them. I'm always going to push for it because one thing I don't want in life is regrets. Every fight I won, even the fights I lost, I didn't regret anything afterwards. I genuinely did my best in every fight, put in all the effort I could. And the same with this fight (against Rozanski). What I don't want is to be 35 and think to myself: I stopped boxing at the age of 31, but I could have done something in those four years.. I want to push as hard and as far as I can to find it. Everything I love outside of boxing will still be there when it's over, but boxing won't exist for me in a few years. ”
Lawrence Okolie holds the WBO cruiserweight belt
Realizing this, Okolie began training with Gallagher at a Manchester gym in December. There, he was surrounded by boxers of all ages and levels, but Okolie was larger than the others only in terms of his height. Aside from that, he was just a boxer practicing. Another boxer he's trying to prove himself. Another boxer that the rest of the gym felt could win.
“Joe has really forced me to do this since I've been in this camp.” all” Okolie said. “I'm talking about trucks, berserk climbers, bar bags, and just hard, hard work. If you don't want that, look it up here. If you don't like that, somewhere in a bar bag This is what you will think. this is crap, and just leave. But we've been persistent, so I think it'll show up on the night.
“The only thing you can compare it to is when you're in the gym with young, hungry fighters. Everyone else is doing it hard, so you have to do the same thing. I worked hard. I think I can show a little bit in this game, but I'm sure I'll show a lot more in the next game.”
Lawrence Okolie and Joe Gallagher
First of all, Okolie must defeat undefeated Lukasz Rozanski this Friday (May 24) in Rzeszów, Poland, to continue his career. In doing so, Okolie will not only get up and run again, he will win the WBC title and reach bridgerweight (220 pounds), making him a two-division world champion before he turns 32. Dew. , one would want to apply an asterisk to it due to the bridgerweight division's relative infancy in the boxing world, but Okolie doesn't care about such nonsense at this stage. All he cares about is the fact that he has a date, an opponent, a target. More importantly, this target is completely unfamiliar. Almost expressionless.
“I'm feeling good so far,” he said of his stay in Poland. “Honestly, I feel like I came to work. I don't have the comforts of home or anything like that. I'm just here to work. It allows me to go out and do my own thing. I can only think about getting the job done, which I think is a good thing.
“Obviously, I want to win for myself, for my friends and my family, but at the end of the day, all I have to do is go out and win a boxing match. I'm just going to go out there and get it done. The only way I'm going to win this fight is to win it well, nothing else.”
“As for this, I don't know the guy. I don't feel anything when I look at him. There's no backstory. He's just a boxer who can throw a double jab and right hand combination. If you don't think about it. That's all there is to it. I don't have to think about what the old coaches are going to do. I can just stick to the fight itself and see how it goes on the day.”
As for gaining weight, Okolie, who was forever aiming to eventually reach heavyweight, considers it to be part of his natural progression. Not only that, but now that he's in his 30s, it has become almost essential for him to have some leeway.
“It’s gotten a lot better, I can tell you that,” he said. “I couldn't go back to cruiserweight again. I still have to make As for Bridgerweight, for example, I had a chance to rest today. Usually, I don't have a chance to rest before a match. I'll always have to something As a cruiser weight. But now I can rest a little bit and I think it will pay off that night in terms of my explosiveness. ”
Lawrence Okolie (Ian Walton/Matchroom Boxing)
If that's true, the prospect of Lawrence Okolie's explosive return would be both appealing to boxing fans and terrifying to his opponents. “I think that's the norm in boxing,” Okolie said when asked about the pressure of trying to get a knockout every time. “I'm a big, strong man, should yeah, I'm doing it. In this fight, the guy comes out and tries to do it to me, so I have to stomp him early. He's not (Olexandr) Usyk, he's not one of the talented boxers. He's a brawler who comes to throw bombs. If I don't knock him out with bad manners, he'll try to do it to me.
“If executed properly, this is the ideal style for someone like me. When boxing against a fighter of his size and style, you can land at will and do well enough to avoid their shots. We'll have to wait and see what happens under the night lights, but I think he deserves a big knockout.
“I want to come out and make a statement, because there's a lot of talk going on from him himself as well. I used Google Translate for some of the things he's talking about, but for him, I don't know. I hope you can feel what I'm trying to say.”
If it's Lukasz Rozanski who ultimately feels it, it's the rest of us who need to know, or just need to be reminded, what Lawrence Okolie is all about, relatively safe. It's probably people watching from their position.
