Lawrence Okolie isn’t really interested in harboring resentment towards Eddie Hearn, his longstanding and now ostensibly former promoter. The WBO cruiserweight champion is scheduled to fight David Light on March 11 in London as part of Boxxer on Sky Sports.
The announcement ostensibly marked the end of Okolie’s long-standing partnership with Hearn, but it is understood that the fighter is still engaged in a drawn-out legal dispute with the powerful promoter over the status of his contract; Okolie believes he has satisfied all the conditions set forth in their original agreement, while Hearn maintains that Okolie owes his organization one more fight.
What did Lawrence Okolie say about Eddie Hearn?
Admittedly, boxing is a sport given to bad blood and vendettas, but Okolie doesn’t see his grudges with Hearn that way.
“I realize it’s just business,” Okolie told SecondsOut.com. “The long and short of it is, you look at a contract and it tells you exactly what you need to know. Men lie, women lie, and numbers don’t. Contracts don’t. It was quite straightforward on our end. Obviously, on their end (Matchroom) you know there were loopholes that they wanted to try and exploit, but I understand why they did it at the time.”
“Honestly speaking, we weren’t, like, friends,” Okolie said of Hearn. “We had a good working relationship, so on fight week we would do what we do. I knew, obviously, he’s been there in every fight and he was obviously someone I didn’t speak to directly, it was more through 258 (Okolie’s then management company).
“But you know I’ve been a big fan of him and I still am. I watch his interviews. It’s like that. But it’s not like me and him ever went for dinner or he ever called me and that kind of stuff. But it was a cordial relationship. Even now we’ve spoken a few times amidst all of this stuff. Of course, there’s been frustration on my side.”
