Lawrence Okolie Return, Goulamirian-Egorov As Co-Feature: Eyed For Feb. 27

Boxing has 17 weight classes and just seven of them currently don’t have a unified champion.

Matchroom Boxing head Eddie Hearn is further looking to unify titles at cruiserweight with the best fighter he promotes in the division via Lawrence Okolie. 

“He became a world champion [earlier this year], defended [the belt]. Now he will defend it again Feb. 27. We want a unification fight,” Hearn told IFL. “On that card may also be [Arsen] vs. [Aleksei] Egorov. So the winners fight the winners there. It’s time for [Okolie] to unify, but we have to keep him active at the same time.”

Hearn did not indicate an opponent for Okolie or a location for the bout, but it would likely take place in the United Kingdom, where the British boxer has been a draw exclusively since turning pro in 2017.

The 29-year-old Okolie (17-0, 14 KOs) won the vacant WBO cruiserweight crown in May with a sixth-round knockout against Krzysztof Glowacki. In September, he defended the title for the first time with a third-round KO against then-undefeated Dilan Prasovic. 

The WBA champion Goulamirian (26-0, 18 KOs), an Armenian who’s primarily fought in France, still has to fulfill the mandatory defense of his title against Russian Egorov (11-0, 7 KOs).

The fight between power punchers was originally scheduled to take place on Dec. 10 but Goulamirian contracted COVID-19 right before the bout, and the fight was scrapped. Russia’s World of Boxing had secured the rights to the fight in August as the lone bidder with a winning claim of $210,000. 

Goulamirian and Egorov will surely both have to fight off the ring rust should they eventually square up as a potential warm-up act for Okolie. Neither fighter has fought since COVID-19 seriously halted sports starting in mid-March 2020.

Manouk Akopyan is a sports journalist, writer and broadcast reporter. He’s also a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and MMA Journalists Association. He can be reached on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube at @ManoukAkopyan, via email at manouk[dot]akopyan[at]gmail.com or on www.ManoukAkopyan.com