Lawrence Okolie in Negotiations with Luis Ortiz for Heavyweight Bout

Lawrence Okolie is negotiating with two-time world heavyweight title challenger Luis ‘King Kong’ Ortiz. The former WBO cruiserweight champion (21-1, 16 KOs) is taking a slow approach to acclimating to the heavyweight division.

The Cuban Ortiz (34-3, 29 KOs) turns 46 on March 29 but is still dangerous due to his power, size, and technical skills. His ring IQ and athletic ability are above the 6’5″ Okolie’s. If Ortiz lands on the uncoordinated ‘Sauce” Okolie, he could knock him out and ruin his heavyweight ambitions.

Okolie vs. Ortiz In The Works

Okolie’s two heavyweight fights have been against Hussein Muhamed and Lukasz Rozanski. Both of those guys were terrible and completely useless in developing Okolie in a real sense to ramp him up for a world title shot. However, if the idea is to feed Okolie tomato cans to make him look invincible, matching him against these types of fighters is the way to go.

In Lawrence’s last fight at cruiserweight, he was thrashed by Chris Billiam-Smith, losing a 12-round majority decision on May 27, 2023. That fight was the writing on the wall for Okolie that his time was up as a ‘champion’ at Cruiserweight. Okolie would not do well with the talented new crop of fighters, Jai Opetaia and David Nyika. Hence, he moved up to heavyweight to reinvent himself.

Ortiz is coming off a first-round knockout victory over Francisco Cordero last year on January 13th in Colombia. “King Kong’ Ortiz had been inactive for two years previous to that after losing a close 12-round unanimous decision to former world champion Andy Ruiz on September 14, 2022.

Ortiz gave Ruiz pure hell in that fight, landing frequently on the chunky 268-pounder. If not for Ruiz dropping Luiz in rounds two and seven, the Cuban would have won. In Ortiz’s previous fight on January 1, 2022, he knocked out former heavyweight champion Charles Martin in the sixth round.