'He definitely has a chance' - former world champion on Jake Paul vs. Anthony Joshua

Few are giving Jake Paul a chance against Anthony Joshua, but Lawrence Okolie is.

Paul and Joshua square off in a blockbuster show in Miami, Florida on Friday evening and the latter is a huge favourite to come out on top, with many seeing the contest as a mismatch.

However, in preparation for his headline bout against veteran Ebenezer Tetteh on Sunday’s fight card in Lagos, live on DAZN, Okolie recently went out and sparred plenty of rounds with Paul.

The former cruiserweight and bridgerweight world champion was impressed with what he saw from Paul and his opinion of ‘The Problem Child’ has gone up since sharing a ring with him.

“He has a chance. He definitely has a chance,” Okolie told Sky Sports.

“I felt him when we were sparring, and I also saw him sparring other guys and he was doing really, really well.

“But on fight night, that’s my only thing. I said to them openly  ‘if you box like this, it’s going to be an exciting and interesting fight’.

“However, you have to be able to do it on the day, when there’s 10oz gloves and those punches are whistling by, it’s very hard to stick to what you’re doing.”

“It would be insane to say, you know, Jake Paul should win the fight – it would just be insane.

"However, like in anything, there is always a chance. So, what I would say is, leaving that camp, I believe his chances are a lot more than before I went there.”

While Okolie agreed that Joshua means business and wouldn’t want to embarrass himself, he wasn’t sure what would have to happen for that to be the case.

He added: “Of course not, but the thing is – what is embarrassing? Is embarrassing Jake Paul landing a punch? Is embarrassing the fight going past 3, 4, 2 [rounds]?

“I don’t know what embarrassing looks like for this fight. It’s hard for me to say.

“If he [Joshua] goes out there and does what we all expect he should do as a former two-time world heavyweight champion and get this fight over in thirty seconds, then cool. But anything outside of that is kind of like a lose-lose [situation].”

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