Billam-Smith V Okolie 2? “The only way to go,” says Sugar Hill

A REVENGE against Chris Billam-Smith is “the only way forward” for Lawrence Okolie, says his manager Sugar Hill.

The two cruiserweights clashed at AFC Bournemouth’s Vitality Stadium last weekend in front of 15,000 fans, largely in support of Billam-Smith. The 12 hard-fought rounds ended with the crowd favorite’s majority decision.

There was already a rematch clause for Okolie if he had lost and his cornerman said so Boxing news they want the second fight.

“Yeah, that’s the only way to go. You don’t want to wait and try to get a rematch. You want to get it right away. He obviously knows there were some things he did (wrong) with the statements he made, and he wants to correct them. He wants to write his mistakes and he wants to be victorious.”

What ensued between the two fighting buddies was a messy contest filled with incidents, point deductions and Billam-Smith walking through everything Okolie had to offer. Is Hill confident the result can be reversed in a replay?

“I’m very sure of it,” he replied.

“I was confident going into this fight. I’m going to be confident going into every fight. That’s going to be something me and Lawrence talk about and we want to figure it out for him. Maybe if he had said peekaboo or something, he would have gone back to the way he was doing in a field training and I wouldn’t be so anxious. I’m a crazy thinker, so sometimes you have to think outside the box to make things work.”

The neighborhood itself said so BN in his dressing room after the restart is what he wants next.

“It has to be. I’m not the type of person who wants to let these two guys fight and this and that. We’re doing it backwards.”

Billam-Smith agreed that Okolie would want nothing more than a chance at redemption.

“He’s a proud man. He’s a winner at heart and I think that makes sense to him and why wouldn’t he. You’ve got another shot at the world title, it’s not like I woke him up. So yeah, I would expect him to want the rematch.”