British heavyweight Lawrence Okolie has offered to help Jake Paul prepare for his fight against Anthony Joshua and spar with the YouTuber-turned-boxer.
The Paul-Joshua bout, a professional eight-round contest using 10-ounce gloves in Miami, was announced on Monday. It will be Joshua’s first fight since September 2024, a Round 5 knockout defeat to Daniel Dubois.
Former cruiserweight champion Okolie (22-1, 16 KOs) is preparing for his own fight on the same night as Paul-Joshua on Dec. 19 in Nigeria in what will be his first bout since July when he tore his bicep in Round 1.
Okolie is in training camp in Dubai, but has offered, largely out of curiosity, to help Paul with sparring. He also doesn’t want to see the inexperienced boxer get badly hurt.
“I want to go help Jake Paul, give him a chance. I want to go out there to Puerto Rico. What I don’t to happen to him is he gets absolutely destroyed in a round or whatever if AJ turns it on,” Okolie said.
“I want him to have a decent feeling of what it’s like to be in there with a world class heavyweight beforehand.
“I have a fight coming up, but I’ll go out for a couple of weeks. I want to know what it is that’s allowed Jake Paul to say to himself: ‘I’m going to get in there with a 250-pound muscle man from England, this big guy, Olympic gold, former two-time heavyweight world champion, in front of millions of fans on Netflix.’
“I need to know. Maybe he’s got a secret that I don’t know.”
Okolie has sparred Joshua before but speaking on Tuesday, didn’t rule out the prosect the fight going more than a couple of rounds, as is widely expected.
“You know what. I’m not going to sit here and pretend that it’s not a crazy difference in size, skill, all different ways. But you know what, crazier things have happened. So, we’ll see,” Okolie said.
“From what I’ve gathered from AJ I don’t think he’s going to go hit him with a massive right hand and end it in 30 seconds.
“I do think though if Jake Paul starts touching him it will be like ‘OK’ [Joshua knockout].
“You know when you’re sparring someone who’s not quite on your level you can gauge how much to put into shots and go OK, I’m going to [box].
“He hasn’t been in the ring for a while maybe he’s going to use it as an exercise. If Jake Paul clips him and doesn’t take him out with the first time, he hits him hard, that’s when I think it’s going to get interesting.
“But crazier things have happened, I don’t know.”
