Anthony Joshua is set to fight Jake Paul in a heavyweight bout on December 19 with that professional showdown worth a reported £140million to the two fighters.
Jake Paul has accepted Lawrence Okolie’s offer of rounds in sparring ahead of his fight with the two-time former heavyweight champion of the world, Anthony Joshua. Okolie, Jared Anderson and Frank Sanchez have each been welcomed into Paul’s camp ahead of the biggest fight of his career.
British fighter Okolie was the first fighter to join Joshua’s management company before going their separate ways and describes AJ as a ‘long-term friend’. He is also a former WBO cruiserweight and WBC bridgerweight champion.
Okolie is now on his own heavyweight journey – and will be in Nigeria when the two men go to war in the ring on December 19 in Miami. Sparring the Brit will be invaluable for Paul as Okolie is just an inch shorter than Joshua who stands at a whopping 6ft 6in tall.
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AJ has agreed to a weight restriction of 245 pounds for the Paul fight and the purse is reportedly £140million.
Okolie had previously offered Paul his help leading up to the fight and admitted he didn’t want to see the United States boxer get destroyed.
“I want to go help Jake Paul, give him a chance. I want to go out there to Puerto Rico. What I don’t to happen to him is he gets absolutely destroyed in a round or whatever if AJ turns it on,” Okolie told ESPN.
“I want him to have a decent feeling of what it’s like to be in there with a world class heavyweight beforehand.
“I have a fight coming up, but I’ll go out there for a couple of weeks. I want to know what it is that’s allowed Jake Paul to say to himself; ‘I’m going to get in there with a 250-pound muscle man from England, this big guy, Olympic gold, former two-time heavyweight world champion, in front of millions of fans on Netflix‘.
“I need to know. Maybe he’s got a secret that I don’t know.”
Okolie has sparred with Joshua on several occasions, but hasn’t ruled out the fight going over a number of rounds. That’s despite people backing AJ for a quick knock-out.
“You know what. I’m not going to sit here and pretend that it’s not a crazy difference in size, skill, all different ways. But you know what, crazier things have happened. So, we’ll see,” Okolie said.
“From what I’ve gathered from AJ, I don’t think he’s going to go hit him with a massive right hand and end it in 30 seconds.
“I do think though that if Jake Paul starts touching him it will be like ‘OK’ [Joshua knock-out]. You know when you’re sparring someone who’s not quite on your level you can gauge how much to put into shots and go OK, I’m going to [box].
“He hasn’t been in the ring for a while – maybe he’s going to use it as an exercise. If Jake Paul clips him and doesn’t take him out with the first time, he hits him hard, that’s when I think it’s going to get interesting.
“But crazier things have happened, I don’t know.”
