Richard Riakporhe by no means deliberate on defeat. However he suffered a painful loss when difficult Chris Billam-Smith for the WBO cruiserweight identify on Saturday.
The setback might be the entire tougher for him to procedure because the loss he by no means envisaged taking befell in entrance of his house lovers at Crystal Palace’s Selhurst Landscape stadium.
Billam-Smith introduced all his enjoy to endure to assemble certain of a unclouded unanimous choice win, however that was once the Londoner’s first international championship bout and he’ll be informed from it.
When Riakporhe does go back he’ll have choices. He extra a fat, bodily cruiserweight and is a famous power-puncher.
If truth be told, Riakporhe is so fat he may just indisputably proceed up in weight and if he does let go the category, he has a ready-made rival in Hackney’s Lawrence Okolie.
The 2 have already got a feud, which incorporates a week altercation at a movie premiere.
Okolie impaired to secure the WBO cruiserweight identify and misplaced it to Billam-Smith endmost generation. He after moved as much as the untouched ‘bridgerweight’ category, a weight elegance at 224lbs this is best recognised by way of the WBC and the WBA.
Even sooner than boxing Billam-Smith, Riakporhe had a way that he may just outgrow the category.
“There’s bridgerweight now,” he advised Sky Sports activities when speculating about his age.
“The WBA have bridgerweight and there’s the WBC. Okolie’s the champion as well, so that’s even more fights, and then we’ve got the heavyweight which is practically the same thing. [Oleksandr] Usyk is pretty much a bridgerweight, [Deontay] Wilder’s been a bridgerweight.”
Okolie knocked out the WBC’s champion at that weight, Lukasz Rozanski, beating him in only one spherical within the Pole’s fatherland of Rzeszow to snatch the belt.
Riakporhe recommended that efficiency. “He did really well and congratulations to him. I was happy for him as well because I heard he’d been through a lot. Even when he was having the fight with Chris Billam-Smith, a lot of people don’t know,” he stated. “A lot of things were going on.
“That’s what we wish,” he added. “I wouldn’t need to struggle a half-pint Okolie.”
Renewing that competition, regardless that, was once indisputably a goal for him.
“I would like that,” Riakporhe stated. “I would really like that. I think that would be great for London. East versus south. The build up would be crazy and a lot of people want to see that fight.
“When Okolie went up, I used to be taking a look on the social media feedback and everyone was once disenchanted. Why? As a result of they sought after to peer me as opposed to Okolie. We will re-light that.”