{"id":355875,"date":"2025-12-19T17:04:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T17:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/355875\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T17:04:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T17:04:10","slug":"lawrence-okolie-expects-more-british-boxers-to-fight-in-nigeria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/355875\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawrence Okolie expects more British boxers to fight in Nigeria"},"content":{"rendered":"

The fight in Lagos fits into Okolie’s plan to gain another world title, this time at heavyweight, in 2026.<\/p>\n

He has fought at that weight twice since making his decision to move up, with July’s unanimous points decision over Kevin Lerena in London his most recent victory.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, the WBC ordered Okolie and unbeaten 20-year-old Itauma, who is due to fight American Jermaine Franklin<\/a> in January, to meet in a final eliminator, with the winner to be named mandatory challenger for a shot next year at the world title.<\/p>\n

And it seems the older fighter is enjoying the perks of no longer having to worry about tipping the wrong side of the scales.<\/p>\n

“I’ve been eating a lot”, said Okolie, laughing.<\/p>\n

“I don’t have to drain myself how I used to 10 years ago. It allows me to enjoy my training a lot more because I’m not starving myself.”<\/p>\n

The Lagos event, tagged ‘Chaos in the Ring’, features an undercard containing a mix of established European names alongside up-and-coming African talent.<\/p>\n

Among the bouts, Harley Benn, son of Nigel Benn, faces Ghana’s Elvis Ahorgah in a super middleweight contest, while French heavyweight Tony Yoka, who beat Joe Joyce to Olympic gold at the Rio 2016 Games, takes on German veteran Patrick Korte.<\/p>\n

Okolie, who tops the bill, hopes to see a new wave of talent inspired in his parents’ homeland.<\/p>\n

“I think there’s a lot of infrastructure that’s planned for Nigeria over the next five to 10 years.<\/p>\n

“That raw, natural talent and ability must be in the roots.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The fight in Lagos fits into Okolie’s plan to gain another world title, this time at heavyweight, in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-355875","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}