Londoner Lawrence Okolie made a dream start to life as a heavyweight with a first-round win over Hussein Muhamed at Wembley’s OVO Arena.
The former cruiserweight world champion landed a well-timed counter-right hand to send Germany’s Muhamed to the canvas with 46 seconds left in the round.
Muhamed, like Okolie, had only been beaten once before but was clearly out of his depth. He rose to his feet on the count of eight and stumbled towards the referee, who smartly ignored the away fighter’s protests and waved off the contest.
“As soon as I hit them, they start going. I’m ready for the best in the world,” Okolie said.
The 31-year-old jumped up divisions after losing his WBO cruiserweight title to Chris Billam-Smith last year.
He won the WBC bridgerweight title in May, before signing with promoter Frank Warren and stepping up to heavyweight.
Okolie weighed in at a whopping 18st 6lb on Friday, two and half stone heavier than his previous fight and more than four stone than he did against Billam-Smith.
He said he felt solid at the new weight.
“I felt tired having to make that [cruiserweight] – now I know every round I can be explosive and then recover,” Okolie explained.
The Hackney fighter has been criticised over the years for his excessive grappling and clinching – a style which, albeit often effective, resulted in many dull contests.
Though much tougher tests await, he delivered on his pre-fight promise of an explosive performance as Warren told the fighter to expect “big fights in 2025”.
Bentley outpoints Pauls, Adeleye demolishes Dacres
In the main event, Denzel Bentley won the British and European middleweight titles and remained on course for a second world-title shot by outpointing Brad Pauls.
Bentley edged a competitive back-and-forth encounter and dropped Pauls in the 10th round with a seemingly innocuous jab.
Pauls was well supported with chants of ‘Newquay Bomb’ by his travelling Cornwall contingency, though there were a number of empty seats in the arena, presumably some fans who may have considered buying a ticket on the door put off by Storm Darragh.
All three judges scored it in favour of Bentley, who is still the number one challenger for WBO champion Janibek Alimkhanuly, having lost to the Kazakhstani in 2022.
Earlier in the night, David Adeleye sent a message to other British heavyweights with a stunning first-round stoppage win over the previously undefeated Solomon Dacres.
Joe Joyce and 2024 Team GB Olympian Delicious Orie watched from ringside as Adeleye unleashed a powerful lead left hook one minute and 20 seconds into the contest.
The punch skimmed Dacres’ head but appeared to scramble his senses as he crashed heavily into the ropes and to the canvas.
British and Commonwealth lightweight champion Sam Noakes continued his undefeated record with a dominant unanimous decision win over Ryan Walsh, after brother Sean Noakes had outpointed Matthew Rennie.
