Luke Campbell set himself up for something big while Lawrence Okolie further tanked his stock at Wembley.
In the major show’s co-main event, “Cool Hand” Luke Campbell (19-2, 15 KOs) got his revenge on French contender Yvan Mendy (40-5-1, 14 KOs) with an emphatic outclassing as the giant stadium filled up in preparation for the heavyweight title fight. His footwork and precision punching game was absolutely on point. Luke circled, stung to the body, circled away from the retaliation, and battered Mendy’s tight high guard upstairs over and over. Yvan would pop him with a right hand here and there, but he never was able to mount any real offense over the twelve rounds. Campbell was never beating him up either in truth. Instead he applied the arts of the sweet science to comfortably and widely win almost every single minute of every single round in the title eliminator. It was a beautiful performance.
With the win, Luke Campbell becomes the WBC lightweight mandatory challenger to champion and pound for pound great Mikey Garcia. The hitch in this plan, of course, is that the Mexican-American is angling for a big money fight in the form of moving up to welterweight to meet rising star Errol Spence Jr. As great as Mikey is, there isn’t a lot of demand for that fight because it isn’t seen as all that competitive so far up in weight. Maybe Hearn, DAZN, and Campbell can come up with a compelling offer for Garcia to make this defense instead.
Lawrence Okolie (10-0, 7 KOs) checked off the UK rising star box in picking up his British belt here, but that is about all he did well for his career. He and Matty Askin (23-4-1, 15 KOs) put on a truly horrific clinchfest in the card’s middle bout. It was as bad as it gets. The fight, if that even is the right word, featured next to no action and fouls every which way. If you’re reading this recap now and are planning to watch the card later, don’t watch this one. Just don’t. It doesn’t get a lot worse. Okolie was deducted a point for a headbutt early and lost two more late for the clinching, but it didn’t fix the fight nor cost him the decision. In fact, why any judge scored any round for either man is beyond me. Neither Okolie or Askin won anything. This was just brutal to get through as a viewer and I never want to think about it again. This fight will have gone a long way to tank any sort of hype Eddie Hearn was building for his young cruiserweight.
Russian heavyweight fringe contender Sergey Kuzmin (13-0, 10 KOs) probably retired former major prospect David Price (22-6, 18 KOs) for good after four rounds of pretty decent action in the night’s second fight. It was actually a competitive and even fight up to the point Price did not come back out for the fifth though. Accordingly, it did seem a little random in the moment. The official line was an arm injury causing the withdrawal. Given David’s history of taking punishment and his rapidly accelerating fatigue, however, it is hard not to wonder if it wasn’t a preventative measure. If the arm injury is the truth, then we will probably see Price back. If not, that’s all folks. Price was talking rematch post-fight though so it is entirely possible the injury is very real. The fight itself had its fun moments with both men landing solid shots and both men taking them surprisingly well given both Price’s very real power and very absent chin
Shakhram Giyasov (5-0, 4 KOs) scored an impressive finish over unbeaten Nicaraguan Julio Laguna (14-1, 10 KOs) in the fifth round of the show’s opener. Giyasov is a talented, blue chip prospect without question. I don’t like a few things he does in terms of fighting in a straight line with his chin up and falling into throwing too many bombs, but he’s excited and has everything he needs physically. He also showed his temperament here. Early in the fight Laguna landed a good shot and it set him off in retaliation. Then in the fifth the 25 year old Uzbek got frustrated with being warned for a low blow. He basically decided to finish the fight on the spot, knocking Laguna out at the end of a long and merciless flurry. Shakhram Giyasov is definitely one to keep up with, especially with the mean streak he displayed here.
