British heavyweight Lawrence Okolie is set to headline a card in Nigeria on 19 December. <\/p>\n
The former cruiserweight and bridgerweight world champion’s opponent in Lagos – on a card promoted by Queensberry’s Frank Warren and Amir Khan – is yet to be announced.<\/p>\n
Okolie, 32, was born in Nigeria and will return for his first professional bout in Africa, which is one of boxing’s emerging markets.<\/p>\n
It comes as Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom hold a show in Ghana on 20 December, with reports of Anthony Joshua potentially fighting in either Ghana or Nigeria at the start of next year. <\/p>\n
“Big time boxing comes to Lagos!” said Okolie, who has a record of 22 wins, 16 stoppages and one loss. <\/p>\n
“This will be a historic moment for Africa, my family and my career.<\/p>\n
“There’s been a lot of talk, but let’s see who really wants to dance…<\/p>\n
“Thanks to Frank [Warren], George [Warren] and Queensberry for making this happen for me.”<\/p>\n
Former light-welterweight world champion Khan, the head of AK Promotions, said: “Lagos is about to witness something special. <\/p>\n
“This event brings together explosive heavyweights and Nigeria’s rising stars…<\/p>\n
“I’m proud to be part of a night that will inspire the next generation of African fighters.”<\/p>\n
British heavyweight contender David Adeleye, whose parents are Nigerian, will also feature on the card.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"British heavyweight Lawrence Okolie is set to headline a card in Nigeria on 19 December. The former cruiserweight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-216056","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}