Dillian Whyte: Okolie is a joke, I’d end his career if he moves up

Dillian Whyte is a heavyweight contender, and Lawrence Okolie is a cruiserweight prospect. The two probably aren’t going to fight any time soon, but there’s been a lot of back-and-forth between them anyway, stemming from a tweet that Okolie sent out on March 2.

In the tweet, Okolie said, “I personally believe I would beat Dillian Whyte,” and posted a snippet of sparring between the two of them.

Okolie (11-0, 8 KO) returns to the ring on Saturday on DAZN, defending his British cruiserweight title against Commonwealth champion Wadi Camacho (21-7, 12 KO), part of the Edwards-Moreno card from London’s Copper Box.

Whyte (25-1, 18 KO) has fired back at Okolie, attacking him pretty hard verbally:

“Okolie is a complete hype job. He’s already pulled out of two fights against Richard [Riakporhe] and that’s before I even managed [Riakporhe]. If I fought him, I’d snap him in two like a twiglet. Okolie and his handful of supporters call themselves ‘Penny Bois,’ which is a great name for him as that’s all he’ll earn off boxing, pennies; as he has no real talent, no heart, no chin and nothing about him is likeable. If Okolie steps up to heavyweight I would end his career. He is one of the most deluded boxers in the history of boxing. Okolie is a joke, without AJ backing him, he’d still be working in McDonald’s.”

Okolie has a frame to eventually move up to heavyweight for sure, but certainly right now moving up to face Whyte would be a pretty ridiculously bold move. The 26-year-old Okolie fought at 201 pounds in the amateurs, and has a body kind of like Deontay Wilder, who also fought at 201 as an amateur. It took Wilder a while as a professional to get a real heavyweight’s body, and he and his team were, to put it one way, extremely patient for the first six years of his pro career.

Okolie is just fighting at cruiserweight, not heavyweight right away as Wilder did, which is fine. He will surely have to move up to heavyweight at some point, but that transition isn’t as easy as simply putting on another 15 pounds or so, either. Whyte’s a solidly built heavyweight, standing 6’4” (an inch shorter than Okolie) and coming in anywhere from 245-260 on the scales these days.

So, yes, Whyte is a legitimate heavyweight contender and surely would beat the still-somewhat-raw cruiserweight prospect Okolie. But Okolie at least got a rise out of him, so there’s that. Ultimately, the beef may have to be settled instead by Okolie facing the Whyte-managed Richard Riakporhe (9-0, 8 KO), himself a developing, powerful cruiserweight. That one’s a lot more of an even matchup on paper.