This Saturday, Matchroom Boxing will promote a fight night which will include two of the brightest stars in British boxing – Lawrence Okolie and Joshua Buatsi.
Both of them participated at the Rio Olympics, with Buatsi managing to secure a bronze medal in the Light-Heavyweight Division.
Rising East spoke to Duncan Ogilvie who is part of their camp, about the old-school training mentality that boxers have, whether Okolie can get a title shot if Usyk vacates, and the importance for Buatsi to get more rounds in this stage of his career.
‘Old School Mentality in Boxing’
Ogilvie said: “The camp mentality in boxing is very old school. Let’s say for instance, they have a fight, and then they don’t have a fight. They will go out, eat and ballon up, get very heavy.
“They will ‘de-train’ and all of a sudden have a fight in six to eight weeks and will smash themselves in that time to get in shape.
“If you think of building blocks, you can build up. I like to think of it, if an athlete is serious about this sport, it is a 50-week a year job. Take two weeks off to have a holiday, but always tick over.
“Anthony Joshua does a great job. He is always in the gym, always in shape. And it makes it easier, fight comes up and you are already at a benchmark, you don’t have to catch up to where you were the last time.
“Lots of old school boxers, will never get better than the level their at, because they reach that level and then de-train after their fight and spend the whole training camp to get to that level again.
“With the two professional guys, I work with (Lawrence Okolie and Joshua Buatsi) we are trying to build building blocks.
“The two guys I’ve got are fighting in the 23rd of March at the Copper Box. They are bang-in camp.
“Lawrence (Okolie) is in camp. I am talking to him daily. Strength and conditioning work, strength wise, I like them to work twice or three times a week. And obviously the priority in training camp is the technical work.”
Okolie’s Path To A World Title
“The jump from domestic level to world level is a big jump. The problem is getting the fights between that level is quite challenging. No one wants to fight him.
“Lawrence discussed that opportunity before the Bellew fight, if Usyk wins this, will potentially go to heavyweight and top eight can fight it out for all the belts.
“Lawrence is currently ranked eighth in the world, so yes that is a realistic opportunity. I know that the (Denis) Lebedev fight has been talked about.
“I think that will be a great fight for Lawrence. He is an absolute warrior, hard as nails and will really challenge Lawrence. He is not going to back down, take a shot and fall down, so Lawrence will really have to be on his game to beat him.”
‘Buatsi Needs The Rounds’
“Josh is an interesting character. He is absolutely brutal in the ring, but probably one of the nicest guys you will ever meet.
“Domestic level, again, he’s proven that he is above that level, but he needs to learn.
“He needs to get the right fights, he needs to get the rounds, because things happen in fights at world level you can only prepare for if you have that experience.
“It’s another challenge, people do not want to fight him. He will fight anyone, is he ready for world-level step? Maybe not, but an opportunity to fight in New York, if that does happen.
“It’s all feasible, his management team will sort that out, but again, I am really privileged to be working with both Lawrence and Josh because the sky is the limit for both of them, they are exceptional talents.”