Lawrence Okolie vs David Light: Fight verdict, ring walk time and suggested bets

Saturday, March 25, at the AO Manchester Arena. Okolie defends his WBO cruiserweight world title over 12 rounds. Ring walks approximately 10pm, live on Sky Sports Action.

Lawrence Okolie to beat David Light in rounds 1-3

Michael Gomez Jnr vs Levi Giles

Frazer Clarke vs Rydell Booker

Callum Simpson vs Celso Neves

Aaron McKenna vs Lukas Ndafoluma

Samuel Antwi vs Omir Rodriguez

Shakiel Thompson vs Robert Talarek

Karriss Artingstall vs Linzi Buczynskyj

Rhys Edwards vs Brian Phillips

Harvey Lambert vs Casey Brown

Under new management, Okolie's career has been severely disrupted by a bitter contract dispute with Eddie Hearn and Matchroom. Now the unbeaten 30-year-old is in Ben Shalom's Boxxer camp and he has a new trainer too in SugarHill Steward.

Steward is the man behind heavyweight world champion Tyson Fury and he has worked on Okolie's positioning, efficiency and decision-making, according to the Hackney cruiserweight.

Okolie has been inactive since his unanimous decision victory over Michal Cieslak in February 2022. It was the first time Okolie had gone the full distance in his professional career and it was a scruffy affair. But the Brit triumphed 117-110, 116-111, 115-112 at the 02 Arena in which Cieslak received vociferous backing.

The Pole never really got close enough to land anything of any note on Okolie, who used his reach advantage to get home on the cards. And next up is the unbeaten 31-year-old from Auckland, Light, who is the mandatory challenger to Okolie's WBO belt.

It will be Okolie's third title defence since he stopped then-world champion Krzysztof Glowacki at Wembley Arena in March 2021.

A right hook did for Glowacki in the sixth round and there's a feeling he might not be in any mood to hang around in Manchester, having seen his career put on hold whilst his contractual situation was resolved.

Light, like Cieslak, will be giving away a huge reach advantage and expect Okolie to dominate at range, forcing mistakes from his opponent.

Okolie was odds-on for a knockout win last time out, but a durable Cieslak, who only has two career defeats to his name, saw out the 12 rounds.

A clubbing right hand did have the pole clinging to the ropes in round one, before Okolie put him down in the fifth and buckled his legs with another right hand later. It took Cieslak three rounds to land anything of note, but to his credit he saw the bell, but was never in contention.

Whether Light can bring anything more to the table is debatable. He has only fought outside New Zealand twice - beating Anthony Martinez and Brandon Glanton in the USA.

Light (20-0) overcame a knockdown in the final round to defeat the powerful Glanton, who is an ex- American footballer) by split decision in Florida in December. It was a notable victory. Light was the 7/2 outsider and one of the judges scored the bout 95-94 for Glanton, while the other two judges scored the bout 97-92 and 95-94 for Light.

Light, a former Commonwealth silver medallist, does have pedigree - and he is ready to spring another surprise after disposing of Glanton. But he's a bigger outsider at around 11/2 to upset Okolie's march to unifying the division.

"It was the same thing. I came in as the underdog," he told Sky Sports. "I was really the underdog. Real credit to the judging of the WBO, they saw it the way I thought it was and gave me the win. I was really stoked for that."

While Light acknowledges Okolie's big right hand and ominous height and reach advantage, he does believe the Brit has weaknesses. But the Kiwi does not really have the punching power to cause the home hope many problems.

Light has 12 knockouts in 20 fights on his record, but there are not many names of any note on that record and Okolie represents a huge step up for the visiting fighter.