Lawrence Okolie's trainer Joe Gallagher feels that his fighter hasn't been given the credit he deserves for taming South Africa's heavy-handed Kevin Lerena at Wembley Stadium last weekend.

Of course, the headlines have been dominated by Oleksandr Usyk knocking out Daniel Dubois to re-establish himself as the undisputed world heavyweight champion but in the evening's chief-support bout, two-weight world titleholder and WBC No.1-ranked heavyweight Okolie (22-1, 16 KOs) overcame a badly torn left bicep in easing to a wide and comfortable ten-round decision win over the usually aggressive South African.

"This is Kevin Lerena who dropped Dubois three times and had a three-round shootout with him. The same Lerena that had a right tear up with Justis Huni, he thought he won and wobbled him in the 10th," Gallagher told The Ring.

"We've seen what Dubois has gone and done [since], what Justis has done to Fabio Wardley and yet Lawrence wins every round, hardly takes more than five shots, sticks to a gameplan, wins [and gets criticised]. Lerena never got into it. No disrespect to Kevin, great team and everything else but the onus was on him to make a statement.

"Of course people say, 'Lawrence had a great chance in-front of 90,000 to knock him out.' Well of course he's gutted he didn't, he'd love to have done but there's this narrative that Okolie is still holding - he never held - Lerena was warned for holding early on."

After the fight, Gallagher posted a photo of Okolie's clearly damaged left bicep, announcing that he had suffered the injury in opening round. The 2015 Ring Magazine Trainer of the Year revealed the 32-year-old kept the injury to himself.

"I thought Lawrence stuck to a gameplan and he never said nothing until after the fight when he went, 'My arms gone.' I looked at him and went, 'Why didn't you say something?' he went 'No, no, no,' because he most probably thought I'd pull it or whatever. He kept a big banger like Lerena at bay using his feet, his [one] arm. He led with a lot of right hands which I wasn't happy about, but think it's a fantastic performance."

Despite the injury, Okolie didn't resort to holding, mauling and grappling his way to the final bell. For the most part he moved, controlled Lerena from distance and dictated the pace from the opening bell.

It may not have been thrilling but certainly wasn't a return to the safety-first, negative style that Okolie tended to fall back on during his cruiserweight days.

Okolie has been in destructive form since linking up with Gallagher and decided to stop depleting his body by boiling it down to the 200-pound cruiserweight limit. He destroyed previously-unbeaten WBC bridgerweight champion Lukasz Rozanski inside a round before making an explosive entrance to the heavyweight division, taking out Hussein Muhamed in less than three minutes in December.

He is now competing at the sharp end of the heavyweight division and can expect to encounter more resistance. Still, that didn't stop his detractors from lazily rehashing their old Okolie criticisms.

"People forget," Gallagher said. "Excitement? Did you not watch him in London when he fought the German? One round. Did you not see when he went to Poland, was the underdog and what he did in one round?

"He's come back and had two first round blowouts - one at bridgerweight and heavyweight - and then he's upped the game and fought the WBC bridgerweight world champion, who has done phenomenal against other heavyweights and has more experience at heavy than Lawrence.

"Lawrence went in, never really got out of second gear with one arm and won every round. I'm like, 'That's some performance' but the thing is, there's boxing people and there's people that don't know boxing and too many people are quick to jump at him whether he had a bad arm or not. That's still a good performance to shut him down."

After Usyk brought Saturday's card to a crescendo, he indicated that he will continue fighting and speculation immediately turned to who he will box next.

The great Ukrainian isn't short of offers.

As the undisputed champion, he has a long list of mandatory obligations to take care of and the WBO's mandatory challenger Joseph Parker has this week been ordered as next in line.

Ranked No. 4 by the WBO and the IBF's No. 15-rated contender at the time of writing, Okolie nonetheless sits comfortably atop the WBC rankings and once his bicep has fully healed, he should have a much clearer picture of the divisional landscape.

Gallagher believes that whilst the injury will prevent Okolie from building any momentum, the ten rounds they spent working together last weekend will eventually prove invaluable and that when his opportunity does arrive, he will be ready to take it.

"Everyone wants to keep talking about who’s next? Joseph Parker, Moses Itauma, Derek Chisora. No-one wants to mention Lawrence Okolie do they? Everyone says Martin Bakole is the boogeyman - no he's not - Lawrence is," Gallagher insisted.

"Lawrence only had two one-round fights and never come back to the corner with me, so he's done 10 rounds now. It's just a shame because I would have liked Lawrence to have been out again in September, October time. There was talk of Agit Kabayel [the WBC interim champion] in October but we'll put that on the back burner for now, make sure he makes a full recovery.

"I think Okolie's doing good. He's the WBC's No. 1 and no-one wants to keep mentioning that. We heard that Dillian Whyte was their number one for two years - we couldn't stop hearing it - but people need to start putting Lawrence Okolie's name on the end of their tongues when they talk about the heavyweights."