TWO-DIVISION world champion Lawrence Okolie, 21-1 (16 KOs), scored back-to-back first-round knockout wins last year as he set about a new chapter in his career and moved up to heavyweight.
Now it has been confirmed that ‘The Sauce’ will collide with former cruiserweight rival Richard Riakporhe, 17-1 (13 KOs), and, ahead of their scrap, Okolie has opened up on how he plans to overcome his fellow Briton.
Okolie knocked out Krzysztof Glowacki to become the WBO cruiserweight world champion in 2021, making three title defences before suffering a shock defeat to Chris Billam-Smith in 2023.
The following year, Okolie opted to move up in weight and take on Lukasz Rozanski for the WBC bridgerweight crown and dispatched the previously undefeated Pole in the opening-round of an authoritative display, re-establishing his power while ending a much-critiqued run of three fights that went the full distance.
In December, Okolie made his heavyweight debut and once again proved how much the 200lb cruiserweight limit had him shackled, weighing-in at an eyebrow-raising 260lbs before halting Hussein Muhamed in the first round to claim the WBC silver title.
Speaking with Boxing News’ Andi Purewal, Okolie explained that he intends to weigh a similar weight for his domestic dustup with heavyweight debutant Riakporhe, hoping to ‘squash’ his fellow Londoner and cement the opinion that the days of his negative fighting style are over.
“For this weight I will probably be the same because I want to squash him but, against certain heavyweights, I will need to box a little bit differently,” he said.
“For this fight, I need to be able to plant my feet, go to work with him and work on him.”
“It probably would have been a different fight at cruiserweight because I would be a little bit less robust and would’ve needed to be a bit more tentative. In this one I am going to surprise him.”
Should Okolie come through Riakporhe unscathed, the 32-year-old plans to mount a title charge and emerge as the Brit to get behind in the sport’s glamour division, eyeing up either another all-British affair or a shot to become WBC mandatory challenger by taking on the victor of the upcoming interim title contest.
“My two hit-list fights, God willing I get through this one, which I anticipate that I will, have got to be the winner of this one, Joyce and Dillian [Whyte] and then the winner of [Zhilei] Zhang and [Agit] Kabayel,” Okolie added.
“The Zhang-Kabayel one is a little bit tougher to nail down. Although I am WBC silver champion, it’s going to take lobbying and organizations and all of that but this one [against the winner of Whyte-Joyce] is going to be easy to make.”
First Okolie must get past Riakporhe, who he fights on the ‘Heavy Impact’ bill at the Co-op Live Arena in Manchester, England, on April 5.
