By Charles Brun: Eddie Hearn talks about wanting to add Lawrence Okolie vs. Krzysztof Glowacki and John Ryder vs. David Lemieux to the Anthony Joshua vs. Kubrat Pulev card on December 12th. The card will be taking place at the O2 Arena in London, England. Steve Kim is reporting the news of Okolie-Glowacki and Ryder-Lemieux potentially being added to Joshua’s fight card.
With that card being sold on Sky Box Ofice pay-per-view in the UK, he must beef it up to entice British boxing fans sitting on the fence wondering if it’s worth it to purchase the event.
Glowacki (31-2, 19 KOs) and Okolie (14-0, 11 KOs) have already been added to Boxrec, a good sign the fight will be taking place on December 12th. The two fighters will be battling for the vacant WBO cruiserweight title.
Eddie getting his wish with Okolie-Glowacki
The Polish fighter Glowacki is coming off of a bizarre third-round knockout at the hands of Mairis Briedis last year in June in Riga, Latvia.
That was the fight in which the referee didn’t hear the bell sound at the end of the second round. Briedis and Glowacki continued to slug it out well after the round ended. Glowacki ended up getting dropped and badly hurt by Briedis. In the next round, Briedis quickly dispatched Glowacki to record a third-round knockout.
In terms of experience, the southpaw Glowacki has a tremendous advantage over Okolie, which could be a problem. Hearn is counting on Glowacki’s sometimes fragile chin betraying him against Okolie, who can punch. Okolie is like the cruiserweight division’s version of Deontay Wilder.
He can punch but uncoordinated and a pure mess in terms of boxing skills. Okolie’s habit of clinging frequently makes him hard to watch at times, but he’s got the power that makes it interesting.
Lawrence can look awful for six rounds and then knock out his opponents in the seventh round. It makes you forget how horrible he was in the early going.
It would say more about Hearn’s confidence in Okolie if he allowed him to challenge IBF/WBC cruiserweight champion Mairis Briedis. That’s a match that Okolie, 27, would likely be a tremendous underdog in.
Ryder vs. Lemieux promises fireworks
In a far more interesting fight, Hearn wants to match the highly ranked John ‘The Gorilla’ Ryder (28-5, 16 KOs) up against former IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux (42-4, 35 KOs) on the Joshua-Pulev card. Hearn would do well to add the Lemieux vs. Ryder fight to the card, as that’s a match that promises excitement from start to finish.
The 31-year-old Lemieux has a lot of holes in his game, but he punches like no tomorrow. There’s nothing with Lemieux’s punching power, and he’ll be a handful to the 32-year-old Ryder, who likes to brawl on the inside.
Ryder might be someone that Lemieux matches up well against. The Canadian performs at his best when facing non-punchers that stand in close and try and bang. Ryder checks all those boxes.
What’s disappointing is that Hearn hasn’t set up a rematch between Ryder and WBA super-middleweight champion Callum Smith. Those two fought last November, and Ryder did enough to win the fight in the eyes of a lot of boxing fans. However, the judges gave it to Callum, who didn’t see his win as controversial.
To Smith, he feels he beat Ryder decisively, and he’s not too bothered about the boxing world seeing it differently. Callum has moved on, and there won’t be a rematch with Ryder. Of course, there haven’t been any fights at all for Callum in 2020, and it looks like he’s going to be active this year.