Lawrence Okolie

Lawrence Okolie, also known as “The Sauce,” was born on December 16, 1992, and is a renowned professional boxer from Hackney, London, England. Okolie’s journey in boxing began when he watched Anthony Joshua fight in the 2012 Summer Olympics super heavyweight final. Inspired, he set a goal to make it to the 2016 Olympics, which he achieved by representing Team GB as a heavyweight.

Okolie turned professional in 2017 when he defeated Geoffrey Cave in just 20 seconds. Okolie’s career quickly gained momentum, with him winning numerous professional fights and earning a reputation as a formidable fighter in the ring. Some of his key career highlights include winning the Commonwealth title twice between 2018 and 2019, the British title from 2018 to 2019, and the European title in 2019. He held the World Boxing Organization (WBO) cruiserweight title from 2021 to May 2023.

One of his most memorable defenses was in September 2021, when he successfully defended his WBO cruiserweight title against Dilan Prašović. Despite the challenges posed by the global pandemic, Okolie returned to the ring in 2022 to successfully defend his title against Michał Cieślak. However, in May 2023, Okolie lost his WBO cruiserweight title to Chris Billam-Smith in a majority decision.

Lawrence Okolie operates from a very loose orthodox stance where he holds his left hand down at his waist and his right hand down at his chest. The low hands are compensated by active and light footwork. Okolie bounces on his feet so that he is always light and ready to shuffle away from punches. In order to deter opponents from simply stepping into punching range and taking advantage of his low hands, Okolie extends his lead hand as a measuring stick to make sure his opponent remains at that distance. He will physically block his opponent with the lead hand if they attempt to challenge the lead hand, and he will punch if they step any closer to him. If he is not ready to attack, the extended lead hand will also serve as an alert to step away if his opponent challenges it. The low hands help Okolie preserve energy when he is not punching, but if all defensive measures fail and he finds his opponent in a dangerous range, he brings the hands up as a last line of defense. With all the preserved energy from holding his hands low, Okolie can slam big power punches consistently through a fight which are also harder for his opponent to see since they come from down below.