It is one of the weekend’s big talking points in Bournemouth, but were former McGuigan’s Gym stablemates Lawrence Okolie and Chris Billam-Smith friends?
The cruiserweights, who meet in Bournemouth’s Vitality Stadium on Saturday night, boxed around 300 rounds together in sparring, helping one another sharpen their tools for their respective fights while working with the same coach, Shane McGuigan.
Now Okolie is trained by SugarHill Steward and Billam-Smith is still with McGuigan, but were the two friendly rivals ever friends?
“I don’t think so,” McGuigan said. “They were associates. I try and keep a good rapport between all the fighters in the gym and Chris is a nice lad and Lawrence is a nice lad.
“Lawrence is interested in Lawrence Okolie, whereas Chris Billam-Smith is interested in a group of people, and making sure that everyone’s on a good path. Lawrence saw this gym as a means to an end, to get himself better, whereas for Chris, this is his family, this is his safe house. He’s been here a lot longer as well, so me and Chris are close but we are close because over the years we’ve spent a lot of time together. Lawrence was in [the gym], off and doing his own thing.”
Billam-Smith always hoped McGuigan would train him and through his own podcast, The Perfect Athlete podcast, Billam-Smith has always actively tried to learn about ways he can improve as a fighter and athlete, learning about recovery, sleep, hydration, nutrition and training methods studiously to help him on his journey. That due diligence has allowed him to progress above and beyond where McGuigan initially thought was possible.
“If you’d told us when Chris was coming down in 2015 sparring George Groves as a sparring partner, in 2023, [that] in the summer, he’s going to be fighting for a world title in front of 15,000 people, turning out to watch him, you could never have scripted it,” Shane admitted.
“Also, it’s on Sky Sports and he’s headlining. At best, I thought he would have got to Commonwealth, European level. Now I think he’s going to win the world title. He’s in the best place. And people will say, ‘You’ve done a fantastic job.’ Yes, I’ve done a good job, [but] he [Billam-Smith] has done an amazing job. It’s about small wins, striving to be one per cent better, 0.2 of a per cent better, looking at ‘if I can only train X amount of hours in the day, how can I make sure my recovery is right?’ ‘How do I make sure me sleep is right?’ ‘Am I stretching?’ ‘Am I doing this?’ ‘Am I doing nasal breathing?’ ‘Am I doing enough zone two training?’ All of these things, he’s educated himself over time. Yes, I can bounce ideas off him and we can structure a training camp, but he can apply them and that’s the thing. That’s a mature athlete who does that, someone who understands the benefits of getting an extra 40 minutes sleep before midnight, whatever it is, he’s always striving for perfection, and that’s what’s got him to this stage.”
The knock on the heavy-handed Okolie has been that he has featured in several dull fights, including his most recent fight against David Light in March. Billam-Smith is a crowd-pleaser who takes risks, and he can’t allow any margins of error on Saturday in front of his hometown fans.
“Lawrence is either knocking someone out… and even against Glowacki he’s not engaged, not engaged and then ‘bang,’ he just lands a shot and that’s the thing. He’s a world class puncher and his aim is to get into the boxing ring and get out of it with as little damage as possible. But it’s self-preservation at its best. That’s what boxing should be, boxers should try and get the job done in the most efficient way possible but it shouldn’t be at the expense of a terrible fight. Unfortunately, if he hasn’t got them out of there in three or four rounds and he hasn’t set it up and it gets physical and it gets a bit sloppy, it tends to be a boring fight because he doesn’t want to engage and he doesn’t want to keep live boxing. He wants to try and nullify at least two minutes of the clock, so it’s down to us to make sure we’re not letting Chris fall into that trap.”
Billam-Smith has not only fought his way beyond British, Commonwealth and European level, but he’s done it while creating a movement in Bournemouth and turning into a focal point for British boxing. Both are significant achievements.
“They’re starved of it and it’s always a huge ask to go to a football stadium…” McGuigan said, of the fight fans turning up on the South Coast, while giving Billam-Smith the credit for the traction with his Gentleman persona and good guy personality. “We pleaded with Sky [Sports] to try Bournemouth and it worked.”
