Chris Billam-Smith: “I know Lawrence very well, it’s a domestic clash and it has all the ingredients you need for a huge fight.”

Chris Billam-Smith: “I know Lawrence very well, it’s a domestic clash and it has all the ingredients you need for a huge fight.”

By Oliver McManus

Dreams rarely last. They are fleeting moments in time. A comforting thought to distract ourselves when the chips are down. Make-believe.

For most, their existence remains entirely in our imagination.

But on May 27 comes a unique opportunity: 36 minutes in which one man, Chris Billam Smith, has the potential to preserve his dream for time immemorial. Moments that will last a lifetime for him and the thousands in attendance.

Business for Bournemouth’s finest is far from finished. Standing in between him and the freedom of the town is, the former Olympian and current WBO world cruiserweight champion, Lawrence Okolie.

Except Okolie was not always the plan with Arsen Goulamirian (WBA belt holder) and Jai Opetaia (IBF) both heavily rumoured to be in the opposing corner for CBS’ world title tilt, as the 32-year-old explained.

“It was on the Friday before Lawrence’s fight (with David Light, on March 25) that it was mentioned in a call with Boxxer. There were problems trying to get Goulamirian over the line, Opetaia had issues with contract disputes, and Badou Jack is just going to stay out in Saudi and ask for big money so he was never going to come over.

“I wanted a world title fight and Lawrence was the last one left on that list. We said “what about him?” and it was put to him on the Monday, I believe, and he obviously went on Sky Sports to say people were umming and ahhing to fight him and I just said ‘let’s do this’. I wasn’t sure he would take it so soon after his last fight but within a week it was done.”

Both men have an intimate knowledge of one another having shared a trainer in Shane McGuigan and hundreds of rounds of sparring. It’s an encounter that will see vastly differing styles meet: Billam Smith’s brash, calculated, aggression against a stifling, stubborn Lawrence Okolie.

And The Gentleman says a win against his former sparring partner will prove his credentials on the world stage.

“Not a lot of people know who Goulamirian is – people know Lawrence Okolie and know he’s never looked close to getting beat. People give him grief about his style but he’s never looked close to being beaten and when I beat him I should get that recognition I deserve by beating a world champion instead of fighting for a vacant title or someone like Goulamirian who, yes is a very good fighter but, not a lot of people have heard of.

“I know Lawrence very well, it’s a domestic clash and it has all the ingredients you need for a huge fight. It doesn’t get any better: it couldn’t be any more of a Hollywood story. Now all I’ve got to do is go out there and perform on the night.”

That Hollywood ending has been spoken into existence ever since Chris Billam Smith’s professional debut – against Russ Henshaw in September 2017 at the O2 Academy in Boscombe. The McGuigan-trained cruiserweight has been on record since day one that the end goal was to become world champion at the Vitality Stadium.

That confidence in his own ability has been matched by the adulation with which the people of Bournemouth hold Billam Smith – something he says is the reason he’ll be able to put on a show on May 27.

“The reason we are able to come back to Bournemouth and do a stadium fight is the fans. A fighter is nothing without their fanbase and those that not just turn up but create an atmosphere that people want to be involved with and that promoters want to come back for. I always knew it would be a good atmosphere (at the BIC) but it was crazy. It’s all thanks to them that I’m able to fulfil my dream by winning a world title at Dean Court.”

Fighters, especially when they are starting out on the small hall scene, frequently tell interviewers bold claims about exactly what they’re going to do and who they’re going to be in their career.

All too often it’s a young lad struggling to sell tickets and trying to bluff their way out of the harsh realities of professional boxing. The ugly truth being that most, for many reasons, don’t reach the heights that they had imagined.

Yet, throughout his career, it has felt different when Chris has hypothesised about his potential. It has felt destined in many respects. So I asked the former Poole ABC representative if he could pinpoint a moment in his career when he began to believe that those dreams of a stadium fight could become a reality.

“Probably after the Chamberlain fight”, he said, “because it showed us that the fanbase was there. I went through hell and back in that camp and my whole life changed in the ten-week period leading up to us getting the fight. I beat Tommy McCarthy and was very happy with where my life was at – six weeks later my son was born and four weeks later the phone rang offering the Chamberlain fight. It wasn’t ideal, I was barely getting any sleep, we had a five-week camp of just putting in graft and going through some really bad spars.

“I was so shattered in that fight – I’ve never been as tired in my life as in that twelfth round – but I put everything into it, I left everything in the ring, and it made me realise if I can beat a fighter like Isaac in that condition on a five-week camp then I can become a world champion.”

It’s not always been plain sailing for the British, Commonwealth and European cruiserweight champion. He trained, for a spell, in Kent and reflected subsequently that it perhaps wasn’t bringing the best out of him and, indeed, he suffered a split decision loss at the hands of Richard Riakporhe in July 2019. But around him, there has always been a level of stability. More so since Billam Smith got married and became a father – his son will celebrate his first birthday the day before the opening bell sounds at the Vitality.

Chris explained: “The belief in myself has grown massively over the years I’ve worked with Shane (McGuigan) We’ve been through a lot and for me this fight is as much about repaying him for all his hard work – and the hard work of the team – because this is what it has been building to.

“I’m quite good at compartmentalising it all, to be honest, so when the time is right to think about how lucky I am to be in the situation then I will but I can also get into that mindset of being all about the fight.”

The last time we saw Chris box was against an unheralded Kosovan in the form of Armend Xhoxhaj. A man that few had ever heard of but who Billam Smith warned could well prove to be the slipperiest opponent of his career.

It almost proved to be. Xhoxhaj started fast and caught the home favourite but Billam Smith weathered the storm – and quite the storm it was – to produce a thunderous one-punch knockout in the fifth round.

It’s a fight that, despite the tricky start to proceedings, the power puncher says played out as expected.

“If you look back at the interviews I did beforehand I was saying that he’s dangerous early on and had proven his worth – everything I said proved to be true. For me, it played out exactly how I expected it to because I knew the dangers and I was aware I couldn’t take him lightly. I started well but he caught me with a decent shot in the second round but, ultimately, it played out how we had expected.

“You can tell (from my celebration) that in my head I was thinking ‘this is it, a stadium fight is next’ but Shane told me to calm down and that’s when we realised it could have been quite a dangerous situation. My punch power has been increasing, we’d been working on things in training, and it really showed with that finish.”

And so it is that, on May 27, Chris Billam Smith has his chance at hometown glory. This is what his life has been leading to ever since he was part of around 20 friends in attendance to cheer on Dean Perkins, a friend from college, in an amateur bout.

Amid the cries of “Deano, Deano”, Chris knew then that it was a feeling he wished to experience for himself.

The lights, the atmosphere, the adulation.

This is what dreams are made of. This is what legends are made from.

One punch is all it takes for those moments of doubt to be wiped away.

One punch is all it takes for a place in the history books.

Photo Credit: Lawrence Lustig/Boxxer