{"id":458342,"date":"2026-03-05T05:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T05:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/458342\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T05:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T05:12:08","slug":"lawrence-okolie-picks-a-winner-in-wardley-vs-dubois-after-sparring-both","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/458342\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawrence Okolie picks a winner in Wardley vs Dubois after sparring both"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Two-division world champion <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/boxer\/lawrence-okolie\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lawrence Okolie<\/a> has laid out his thoughts ahead of <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/boxer\/fabio-wardley\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Fabio Wardley<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/boxer\/daniel-dubois\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Daniel Dubois<\/a>\u2019 upcoming showdown for the WBO heavyweight world title, after sparring both men.<\/p>\n<p>A white-collar star, the rise of Wardley has been inspirational, giving hope to boxers of all levels that they too can reach the top with the correct discipline, hunger and attitude.<\/p>\n<p>After moving up to world level last year, the Ipswich fan-favourite has come from behind to halt both Justis Huni and <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/news\/usyk-call-out-more-realistic-after-fabio-wardley-beats-parker\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Joseph Parker to earn the WBO Interim heavyweight title<\/a>, before being elevated to full world champion when Oleksandr Usyk vacated the belt.<\/p>\n<p>Now, Wardley seeks to prove his legitimacy as a world champion, accepting a difficult voluntary defence for his first world title affair, taking on fellow Briton and former heavyweight ruler Dubois.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skysports.com\/boxing\/video\/30998\/13514703\/daniel-dubois-lawrence-okolie-eyes-future-clash-with-ex-gym-mate-after-fabio-wardley-clash\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Sky Sports<\/a>, Okolie, who has shared the ring with both men behind the scenes, revealed that he gives Dubois the edge due to his superior experience and punch power.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think that Dubois is going to win because he has got a lot more experience at the level and he has beaten better guys.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think that, stylistically as well, if they do start trading, unless Fabio is that much quicker than him, Daniel definitely punches harder than him and is more concussive, so I think he will probably hurt him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHowever, with his [Wardley\u2019s] confidence and Ben Davison, who I think is a really good coach, they might work on the right sequences to catch Dan and if they catch Dan early and hard, then we could see a few repeats of some of his performances.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would be favouring Dan in that fight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/boxing\/articles\/cnv63795e3zo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Wardley-Dubois takes place on Saturday, May 9<\/a>, at the Co-Op Live Arena, for what will be the sixth heavyweight world title contest to have ever taken place in Manchester.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two-division world champion Lawrence Okolie has laid out his thoughts ahead of Fabio Wardley and Daniel Dubois\u2019 upcoming&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456408,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-458342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458342","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=458342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}