Via Jack Tiernan: A week after battling WBO cruiserweight champion Anthony Joshua, Lawrence Okolie has decided to switch to heavyweight for his next bout.
The conclusion one can draw from this news is that the rumors about 6’5″ Okolie (17-0, 14 KOs) outplaying Joshua in their session are true.
It would be interesting to fly over the wall during the Joshua-Okolie match to see what happened. If it is true that Okolie knocked Joshua down, then AJ’s confidence has hit an all-time low heading into a rematch in April against IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk.
With Okolie’s WBO title, he can petition the World Boxing Organization to make him mandatory for Oleksandr Usyk’s WBO heavyweight title.
If Okolie can become a must for Usyk, he will be in a position to challenge for the world title in 2023 or 2024.
Okolie will need to line up behind other required challengers from other sanctioning authorities before being awarded the title.
The amount Okolie will get fighting whoever becomes WBO heavyweight champion after 2022 will be HUGE. Okolie won’t make money at cruiserweight, even as a WBO champion.
It’s not a popular enough division for Okolie to become as wealthy as Joshua, Tyson Fury, or even contenders like Dillian Whyte.
On social media, Okolie revealed his plan for him to go to heavyweight. He did not say whether he would vacate the WBO cruiser class belt, but he would make sense to do so.
For Okolie to achieve maximum success in the heavyweight division, he had to stay in the sport, put on more weight, and focus on training with bigger fighters. Swapping back and forth between cruiser and heavy would be a bad idea for him.
Okolie, 29, has the size, strength and ability to win world titles at heavyweight. We just saw former undisputed cruiser champion Oleksandr Usyk beat Joshua last September, and Okolie is a lot bigger and stronger than he is.
I think I’ll have a HIGHER fight next
– Lawrence Okolie (NEW MONEY FREE OUT NOW) (@Lawrence_tko) January 5, 2022
In the training clip of Okolie and Joshua in Dubai, Anthony is moving around the ring when he is followed by Lawrence. You can tell from watching the clip that Okolie is stacking Joshua to execute a right-hand bomb.
2016 Olympian Okolie won the WBO cruiser class title last March, knocking out former champion Krzysztof Glowacki by knockout in the sixth round. In the first time Okolie defended his WBO title, he defeated the previously undefeated Dilan Prasovic in three rounds.
Interestingly, Canelo Alvarez chose not to target Okolie for his WBO cruiser class title. To be fair, Canelo doesn’t want to mix it up with a boxer the size, reach, and strength of Okolie.
