{"id":303993,"date":"2025-12-07T22:37:04","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T22:37:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/303993\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T22:37:04","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T22:37:04","slug":"okolie-praises-wardley-believes-heavyweight-division-ready-to-explode-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/303993\/","title":{"rendered":"Okolie Praises Wardley, Believes Heavyweight Division Ready To Explode In 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lawrence Okolie<\/a> is looking forward to playing his part in a lively heavyweight division in 2026.
This week, the WBC announced they plan to match he and Moses Itauma<\/a> in a final eliminator for the WBC title held by The Ring and unified titleholder Oleksandr Usyk<\/a>.
Before that on December 19, Okolie (22-1, 16 KOs) will return from the torn bicep suffered during his 10-round win over Kevin Lerena<\/a> in July and headline a show in Lagos, Nigeria.
At the time of writing, Okolie doesn\u2019t have an opponent. Last week, The Ring reported that Dillian Whyte<\/a> had been made an offer to accept the assignment.
In October, Okolie was at London’s O2 Arena to see Fabio Wardley score a dramatic 11th-round knockout of Joseph Parker<\/a> in their interim WBO heavyweight title fight.
Usyk recently decided to relinquish his WBO title<\/a>, meaning Wardley was automatically upgraded to full champion. <\/p>\n

Okolie and Wardley aren’t on the best of terms but the two-weight world champion couldn’t help but be swept up in the atmosphere as his British rival completed his remarkable rise from the white collar circuit to the heavyweight championship of the world.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Okolie revealed that he admires Wardley’s willingness to take risks in pursuit of glory.<\/p>\n

“One thing Fabio Wardley is going to do, he’s going to empty the tank and see what happens and that’s a very rare skill to have,” he said during an interview with Queensberry.<\/p>\n

“It’s a skill because it takes confidence, decision making, presence in the moment. So as I said, I think he honestly deserves it.<\/p>\n

“In that fight, if you didn’t get the stoppage in that exact moment, you would have been in big trouble because you emptied everything you’ve got. For me, I’m happy that it paid off for him, I won’t lie. As much as I want to box him and we’ll get our fight on. That moment there, I’ve got to say, ‘You know what? Actually, he rolled the dice and it paid off.’ I like it.”<\/p>\n

Okolie does have an ulterior motive for celebrating Wardley’s success.<\/p>\n

The 32-year-old believes that Wardley’s memorable win and subsequent crowning will keep the heavyweight division moving and open the door to a series of big fights.<\/p>\n

For the time being the heavyweight division is creeping along as fighters, managers and promoters wait to hear which path 38-year-old Usyk decides to take. <\/p>\n

Okolie has been one of those in limbo.<\/p>\n

Usyk still holds the WBC title whilst The Ring’s No. 3-ranked heavyweight, Agit Kabayel<\/a>, holds the interim belt. Okolie currently sits top of the sanctioning body rankings, though Itauma’s sudden insertion into the conversation complicates matters further. <\/p>\n

However the situation with the WBC plays out, Okolie believes the heavyweight division is about to enter an era where the leading lights fight each other regularly and that Wardley’s ascension could speed up the process. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

“It’s not like we’re friends. It’s just I was there, I watched it live and that’s what I mean. Like what would have happened if Parker won? Nothing. You know what I mean? It would have just been a guy from down under or whatever parading the belt around and waiting for Usyk. Pointless,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Fabio seems like he’s up for fights. He’s up for 50-50 fights. We’ll see – now that he’s got the silverware – if he still keeps that same kind of gutsy energy or plays it smart. We don’t know but it’s gonna be exciting. I think 2026 is going to be a crazy year for Queensberry in particular.<\/p>\n

“We’re at the stage whether it’s me, Kabayel, David Adeleye<\/a>, Dan Dubois<\/a>, Itauma we’re all on the stage, but 2026, I think we’re all going to be getting it on.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lawrence Okolie is looking forward to playing his part in a lively heavyweight division in 2026.This week, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,6842,6836,6841,6840,6834,6102,6837,6838,6839,6835,6588,6847,6846,6830,6828,6829,6844,6831,6827,6848,6843,101,6845,6826,6833,56,54,55,6832],"class_list":{"0":"post-303993","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-boxing-community","10":"tag-boxing-fights","11":"tag-boxing-history","12":"tag-boxing-interviews","13":"tag-boxing-magazine","14":"tag-boxing-news","15":"tag-boxing-photos","16":"tag-boxing-rankings","17":"tag-boxing-schedule","18":"tag-boxing-videos","19":"tag-boxing-results","20":"tag-disqualification","21":"tag-draw","22":"tag-fight","23":"tag-fighter","24":"tag-fighter-news","25":"tag-knockout","26":"tag-latest-boxing-matches","27":"tag-ring","28":"tag-ring-magazine","29":"tag-split-decision","30":"tag-sports","31":"tag-technical-knockout","32":"tag-the-ring","33":"tag-top-fighters","34":"tag-uk","35":"tag-united-kingdom","36":"tag-unitedkingdom","37":"tag-upcoming-boxing-matches"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303993","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=303993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}