Dillian Whyte 'point blank refused' to fight Lawrence Okolie

Lawrence Okolie will now fight on the Oleksandr Usyk v Daniel Dubois 2 card after claiming that Dillian Whyte 'point blank refused' to fight him.

While reports had emerged last week that Lawrence Okolie could be set to fight Dillian Whyte, ‘The Sauce’ will now fight Kevin Lerena at Wembley on 19th July.

Okolie heads into the fight off the back of an impressive knockout victory against Hussein Muhamed back in December 2024, with his only professional loss coming against Chris Billam-Smith in May 2023.

Okolie was set to fight Richard Riakporhe on 5th April 2025, but had to withdraw through an injury suffered in training. Despite what will be seven months out of the ring, Okolie seemed optimistic ahead of his bout with Lerena when speaking to iFL TV.

He said: “Kevin Lerena has been IBL world champion, seven defences, now WBC bridgerweight world champion. So, he’s on a good run, he feels like a champion and he’s just sold out an arena in South Africa.

“As far as he’s concerned, I’m on his journey to the top but I’m seeing exactly the same thing on my end. It’s a good crossroads fight.”

Amongst all the talk, Dillian Whyte had emerged as a likely candidate for Okolie, though complications occurred behind the scenes in which Whyte allegedly didn’t appear keen on a potential bout.

Okolie added: “I said, ‘win, lose or draw for him, that’s the one I want to get ticked off.’ We shook hands. Cool. Behind the scenes, everything but yes.”

It was presented to him several times with several different entities and he just point blank refused.

- Lawrence Okolie, iFL TV

“It wasn’t a fight that he was interested in at all.”

While the cancelled Riakporhe bout will likely be at the back of Okolie’s mind as he looks ahead to July, he seems confident that the two will eventually meet in the ring.

He said: “I think it will happen, It’s all about timing. At the time, that was the fight. Unfortunately, I got injured, it didn’t manage to rematerialize itself.

“If he comes across the path (to becoming a world champion), that’s the one I’m going to do.”

Ellis Statham

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