LONDON – Lawrence Okolie marked his debut at heavyweight by explosively stopping Germany’s Hussein Muhamed inside a round at Wembley Arena.
The 31 year old, after one contest at bridgerweight, had weighed in on Friday at a surprisingly heavy career-record 260.8lbs – considerably beyond the cruiserweight limit at which he reigned as WBO champion until his only defeat, by Chris Billam-Smith in 2023.
The fight with Muhamed, 33 and a career heavyweight, also represented the first of his promotional agreement with Queensberry Promotions, so influential in his new weight division.
Muhamed’s aggression and clumsiness posed as much a threat to himself as to Okolie during the opening exchanges. It therefore surprised little when Okolie landed the counter right hand that dropped him sufficiently heavily that Muhamed impressed in eventually returning to his feet, where, after appearing unsteady, he was rightly rescued by the referee Lee Every after two minutes and 14 seconds.
In his first fight since recruiting Adam Booth as his trainer, David Adeleye stopped Solomon Dacres in under a round to dethrone him as the English heavyweight champion. Adeleye had moved to work with Booth in the aftermath of his only defeat, by Fabio Wardley in October 2023, and dropped and stopped Dacres in 80 seconds with a left hand.
There was also a unanimous decision victory for Sean Noakes over Mathew Rennie, via three scores of 97-93, in the first defence of his English welterweight title, and a win after 1.39 of the third round for Aloys Youmbi over Lewis Oakford, at cruiserweight.
The junior lightweight Royston Barney-Smith stopped, after 2.57 of the fifth round, Andres Navarrete of Colombia. At welterweight, Ireland’s Pierce O’Leary required 76 seconds of the third round to defeat the Uruguayan Jose Edgardo Perdomo, and at junior lightweight Billy Adams outpointed Brazil’s Jonatas Rodrigo Gomes de Oliveira via a score of 60-54.