I’m looking forward to seeing Lawrence Okolie get back in the ring this Sunday night at London’s O2 Arena, live on DAZN, because I'm convinced, he’s a fighter with a very bright future.
This sport, the hardest sport of them all, came thick and fast at Okolie as he went to the Olympics with only a small bit of experience and he’s moving at the same rate as a professional too.
Take a look at the fighters who went to the 2016 Olympics and how many are further along in their careers than Okolie? There can’t be many, and the ones who are, I’ll wager right now that they’ve got double, perhaps triple, the amount of experience that he has. That’s one of the biggest weapons a fighter can have, but Lawrence has learnt on the job, and he hasn’t cut a single corner.
This weekend, he faces Michal Cieslak in the second defence of his world title. Cieslak is a very good fighter. I know the cruiserweight division as well as anybody and Cieslak is a very rounded fighter who would give most top-level boxers a lot of problems. He may do the same to Okolie, but I expect the champion to retain his title and then look towards the heavyweight division. That’s a jump I’m familiar with.
In 2016, after becoming world champion, I made the decision to leap to heavyweight to take on David Haye, another former cruiserweight ruler who had gone on to become heavyweight champion. It was a fight that I had wanted from my amateur days, and I was putting on a serious amount of size to do so. I had to get it right.
A big advantage I had taking on David was the fact he was a small heavyweight. I had sparred him in the past and had success and I knew that I wasn’t making the jump to take on the really big guys like Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury. I had to be strategic and not give away too many advantages. I did fancy the Fury fight at one stage because he’d been out the ring for a little while, but looking back, I would've been giving away so much to him.
After defeating Haye, I was in the mood to stay at heavyweight, but it had to be for the right fights. There was talk of Joseph Parker for the WBO belt and that would've been a fight I fancied. Deontay Wilder was also spoken about, but his size would've been hard to overcome. There were many at heavyweight I could've beaten but the really big guys, the giants, they present different problems. That’s what Okolie must look at when he makes the move there.
He’s bigger than I was when I went there and I’m confident that he’ll have success up there because he’s dedicated and determined. That can get you a fair distance. If I’m Okolie, then I’m making the move without disrupting the giants. He may feel different, and he might want to test himself against all the leading guys at heavyweight, but I think he can have success there regardless.
Take away Joshua and Fury and there’s a lot of intriguing fights that you can see Okolie in. Him against Dillian Whyte would be a fight that could really deliver in the division. Even going in with Oleksandr Usyk is possible for Okolie. How about Okolie vs. Joseph Parker?
There’s plenty of opportunities there for him, but he must remember to be smart. That goes for this Sunday too, because if he takes his eye off the ball in Cieslak then you can forget about big fights at heavyweight.