Lawrence Okolie has taken plenty of stick since losing his cruiserweight world title but he has now got his career back on track with a highlight reel knockout win in Poland – proving that he can be successful outside of the cruiserweight division and becoming a two-division world champion in the process.
After losing his WBO cruiserweight title in a surprise defeat to Chris Billam-Smith in his most recent outing, Okolie delayed his imminent move to heavyweight in favour of a shot at becoming a two-division world champion, stopping by in the bridgerweight division for a clash with Poland’s Lukasz Rozanski.
Ahead of the bout, ‘The Sauce’ also made the decision to ditch SugarHill Steward and appoint Joe Gallagher as his new head trainer – who was vocal in his belief that his new fighter needed to find a first stoppage since 2021 to be victorious – following three underwhelming displays against Michael Cieslak, David Light and Billam-Smith, as reported by fightnews.com.
“I’ve said to him since day one that if he thinks he’s going to go over there and win on points he’s absolutely mad. That’s just not how it’s going to be. There’s going to be a hostile crowd. He’s got to look to knock him out in round one or two, even ten or eleven but he can’t let it go to points.”
However, against Rozanski this is easier said than done. The undefeated champion entered the ring with a record of 15-0, with 14 of those wins coming by way of knockout, the most recent of which came against a familiar face to British fans in the form of Alen Babic, who he stopped in the first-round.
With Okolie often being criticized for holding and adopting a negative game plan, it would take a polarising performance, a complete contrast to the Brit’s latest displays if he was to become a multi-weight world champion.
From the opening bell, it was clear to see that Okolie had no intentions of allowing this bout to go to the judges, throwing the straight right-hand with bad intentions early on in the opening-round and dropping the home fighter after taking a half-step backwards and delivering a picture-perfect shot.
Over a minute left in the round and Rozanski could not get his feet underneath him. He quickly found himself picking himself up off of the canvas once again just seconds later, being pinned against the ropes and feeling the full effect of yet another straight punch.
The referee could have easily waived the contest off at this point but instead allowed the champion the chance to recover and make it to the end of the round, but Okolie had other ideas and found a home for a beauty of an uppercut to bring the bout to and end and put the exclamation point on a flawless debut under Joe Gallagher, where his instructions were followed to a tee.
Whether Okolie will remain and defend his belt at bridgerweight remains to be seen, but this performance gives the indication that he is comfortably above those who are competing at the weight. If he were to stay, Kevin Lerena sticks out as the obvious option as he is the mandatory challenger, although Okolie may decide to make the jump to heavyweight off of the back of an ideal performance.
Rest of the bill
- Fiodor Czerkaszyn (23-1) TKO RD7 vs. Jorge Cota (31-6) – Middleweight
- Jan Czerklewicz (12-1) UD8 vs. Paul Valenzuela Costa (28-11) – Super-Middleweight
- Ihosvany Rafael Garcia (12-0) KO RD2 vs. Lukasz Plawecki (7-1-2) – Light-Heavyweight
- Tobiasz Zarzeczny (5-0) UD4 vs. Daniel Przewieslik (3-13-2) – Super-Middleweight
- Kamil Slendak (1-1) TKO RD2 vs. Daniel Plonka (1-0) – Cruiserweight
Boxing Social is now on WhatsApp! Join our channel by clicking here and getting all the latest boxing news direct to your phone.