Lawrence Okolie and David Light both made weight for Sunday morning’s WBO cruiserweight world title fight in Manchester, but the weigh-ins were marred when an undercard fighter shoved his opponent to the floor in a moment of madness.
Okolie, the 18-0 WBO champ (14 KOs), has the hefty build of a heavyweight but comfortably came in under the cruiserweight limit for his clash with New Zealand’s 20-0 Light, and calmly stated: “I feel good. I’ve put in a great camp.”
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But their measured build-up was blown out of the water by popular Michael Gomez Jr. The son of a cult hero in Manchester, Michael Gomez, the super-featherweight received a huge reception from fans wearing sombreros as he weighed in.
And when the two faced off, the emotions went to his head as Gomez Jr shoved his rival Levi Giles straight to the floor. Giles got up with a smile on his face and laughed it off, but Gomez Jr could face punishment after their English title bout – with Giles’ manager submitting a complaint and British boxing authorities now investigating the matter.
“He’s just made himself look like an absolute fool up there,” a remarkably composed Giles told ESBR afterwards.
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It follows some more wild antics from Gomez Jr at their official press-conference 24 hours earlier.
“I’ll punch you up now,” Gomez told Giles.
“I don’t know anything about him,” he added. “Saturday night we’ll find out who he is.”
On that occasion, as today, Giles refused to play into the war of words.
“I do my talking in the ring,” he replied. “It’s a good test for me, see where I’m at.”
But Gomez couldn’t be deterred from his brash ways, hitting back: “I’m just going to punch his face in.”
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