Lawrence Okolie has promised to teach ‘delusional’ David Light a lesson — after lessons of his own from Tyson Fury.
The 30-year-old WBO cruiserweight champion sparred with WBC heavyweight champion Fury as recently as Friday. And he can’t wait to try to lure Light into the same kind of traps the Gypsy King sets for his opponents. Okolie said: “I did a little move-around with Tyson on Friday, nothing that crazy, just a little body spar. But it’s good to see with one of the biggest heavyweights what that is like. With Tyson, it’s very much like he’s constantly thinking. He knows how to use his height, reach and weight all in different parts of the ring.
"I won’t go into the intricacies but you can feel it and he’s good enough to talk me through what he is doing. It’s like he says, ‘I’ve got you here’, and I’m thinking, ‘Oh, this doesn’t feel nice. Okay, I’m going to try that’. He’s very technically sound. I’m not talking about throwing a one-two correctly, it’s about tactically and positionally in terms of actually winning a boxing match, he has all these skills and they show.”
Okolie takes on Kiwi challenger Light on Boxxer’s show in Manchester on Saturday. He added: “He’s 20-0 so he’ll obviously be coming with that confidence and belief. But it’s almost delusion, actually, from him and his camp, some of the stuff they have been saying. That lets me know their mindset and sometimes deluded people can cause problems because they don’t understand how things are supposed to go, so you have to teach them. He’s a grown man and he has been boxing for a long time, but they say stuff that to me sounds so stupid, like ‘No one has tried [this or that against Okolie]’.
“It’s like, people have tried before him knowing this is their world title shot. For the last four years plus every fight has meant something to the other person as well as me, they’ve come to win because they know it could be life changing. But then when they come and stand in front of me they realise it’s not their time, so I have to teach David it’s not his.”
Okolie wants two or three fights this year and wants to add to his belt collection before making his long-planned jump up to heavyweight. He said: “I would really like to unify the cruiserweight division before I step up but it really depends on Friday where I am with the weight. Once I have made the weight for this fight I will let people know. If I feel anything other than amazing on Saturday it will be time to move on, but I don’t envision that being the case with this fight. As soon as it becomes too much of a drag, if I have to diet for too long or I have to sweat it out for too long, it’s boring, I don’t like that side of boxing, I like the fighting so I’ll move on.”
