Lawrence Okolie has weighed in for his world title fight against Lukasz Rozanski on Friday night and has now made a bold prediction.
The former WBO cruiserweight world champion will face Rozanski for the WBC bridgerweight title in front of the Polish contender’s home crowd and he continues his ascent towards the heavyweight division.
Okolie appeared in excellent condition on the scales and weighed in at 101.4 kilos, comfortably within the bridgerweight limit, which shows this is maybe a more suitable weight for the Hackney native.
Rozanski, undefeated with a 15-0 record following last year’s first-round knockout of Alen Babic, weighed in at 101 kilos.
Okolie, who is fighting with new trainer Joe Gallagher for the first time, seems confident with his pre-fight talk and promises a stoppage.
“The only thing that matters is the fight. I’m going to be very composed and clinical. I’ve got several knockouts, and several early knockouts in my career and I’m going to get back to that. I win by stoppage. It’ll be a good counter shot or good work to the body.”
He then revealed it had been much better working towards this new higher weight.
“When you’re walking around at 118kg, cruiserweight isn’t happening. Even now I have to make bridgerweight, but it’s a lot nicer weight cut.”
Lastly he predicted how the fight might go and what his opponent might do, given that Rozanski has as of yet not gone past four rounds in any fight and has in fact stopped 14 of his 15 opponents, including 13 inside the first two rounds.
“You don’t get to 16 fights with 15 KOs without wanting it, so I think Rozanski is going to come flying out and try to assert himself and it’s up to me to show him my pedigree, the level I’ve been at for a number of years and the fact that I’ve got great punch power myself – especially with the extra weight that I’ve put on and not having to drain myself to make the weight, I should put on a very explosive performance.”
This is Okolie’s first fight since he lost his cruiserweight title to Chris Billam-Smith, who himself will defend that title against Richard Riakporhe in June.
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