After losing his WBO cruiserweight title to Chris Billam-Smith in May 2023, Lawrence Okolie had some big decisions to make.

Realizing that his career hung in the balance after producing a mess of a performance, he didn’t shy away from making them.

The announcement that he would be leaving the 200lb division and stepping up in weight came as little surprise but the news that the Londoner would move north and train at Manchester’s famous Champs Camp under former Ring Magazine trainer of the year, Joe Gallagher, was something of a shock.

Things have worked out perfectly. Gallagher has worked hard to recalibrate Okolie’s mindset and the 32 year-old has repaid him with a pair of explosive, dominant outings.

The partnership between Okolie, 21-1 (16 KOs) and Gallagher began before his WBC Bridgerweight title fight with Poland’s Lukasz Rozanski last May,

Okolie weighed in at a career heaviest 223.8lbs and looked revitalized. He dropped the previously undefeated veteran three times and added a second world title belt to his collection within the very first round.

The extra weight clearly did wonders for Okolie’s confidence but he is a big man and still had to work to make the 224lb Bridgerweight limit.

The decision was made to stop fighting the scales and jump into the thriving heavyweight division.

Last December, he scaled an eye opening 260lbs and blew away the solid Hussein Muhamed inside the opening three minutes.

Okolie will return to the ring on April 5th. He will meet his long time rival, Richard Riakporhe, on the undercard of Dillian Whyte’s fight with Joe Joyce. DAZN will screen the event which will be Queensberry’s first with the streaming giant.

Okolie is a big, physically imposing problem at heavyweight but he has also recaptured the air of menace he lost towards the end of his 200lb title reign.

He told The Ring that Gallagher has been the ideal man to draw out the aggression and assertiveness required to be a top heavyweight.

“100%. Training-wise, mentality-wise, he's been perfect for the heavyweight version of myself,” he said.

“Because I can box, I can jab, step back, I can move left, move right, I can nullify a fight or a spar.

“Sometimes if I choose to do that, it's like, ‘Hold on, you're a heavyweight now, stand your f---ing ground. Go and be a heavyweight.’

“You're right. I'm not a cruiserweight, dancing around. I'm a big, strong guy. Go out there and be a big, strong guy and go get the job done. So he's been perfect.”

Joining Champs Camp has turned out to be a good move but it wasn’t an easy one. Gallagher put Okolie through the mill during his first few weeks.

There obviously needs to be compatibility on the technical and tactical side of a new partnership but fighter and trainer also need to develop an unbreakable trust in each other. Both need to know that the other party is willing to match the level of work that they put in every day in the gym but they also have to be fully confident that once fight night arrives, the other man won’t be found wanting.

The boxer needs to know that the man in their corner will remain calm and composed whatever happens during the course of the evening. A trainer needs to be certain that if they have to ask their fighter to go to dark, uncomfortable places, they will do so without hesitation.

“Yeah, 100% because he's putting me through hell in training and then I'm there ready to go for it,” Okolie said.

“He knows the kind of life that I live outside of boxing and he knows it's a good life, do you know what I mean? But he doesn't want to see that.

“‘When we're here to train, I don't care what you've got going on, I don't care. I want to see you putting in the work like all these young guys that are in the gym with you.’

“It matters as well because when you're in a fight, you need your coach to know you're ready to go to the well and he also needs to know that you are. Because if a fight gets tough, you don't want him having second thoughts. You want him to know my guy's got the good stuff.”

“For example, in this fight against Richard, Richard is a big, strong guy with a good punch repertoire and good punching power.

“So [if] he’s saying, stand in there and throw these shots despite it being dangerous, you've got to know that I'm going to do it.”