Photograph: Andrew Couldridge/Action Images/Reutersīut the couple find a way.
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But I don’t think there will ever be a time when I’m ready to watch Chris get punched in the ring.”Ĭhris Billam-Smith has won 17 of his 18 pro fights and will try to win Okolie’s WBO cruiserweight belt in Bournemouth on Saturday. It’s different for him because this is the path he’s chosen. “It’s hard, because I don’t think I’m ever going to be ready. He said: ‘Come back to me when you’ve visualised it and you’re ready – because I need you to be ready.’” It’s overwhelming.’ All my anxiety came out but Chris was very calm. I had verbal diarrhoea: ‘What if this happens? What if that happens? I can’t visualise it. A few weeks ago I was a bit upset and I was crying as I thought about the fight. “Chris keeps saying: ‘Mia, you need to visualise the stadium and the people and the fight.’ He goes through each win, lose or draw scenario with me because that’s what he does to mentally prepare himself. It can be fraught but, as Mia says, it works best when they express their conflicted emotions to each other. They are there to support the fighter they love while trying to control their own fear and worry.
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But an hour with Mia is a valuable reminder of how much the partners of professional boxers endure in their lonely role on the safe side of the ropes. Chris is so focused on his goal but, a couple of times, he has said: ‘I can’t quite believe this is happening and we’re actually here.’ The stadium increased its capacity from 12,000 to 15,000 people and the fact that they’re all going to watch him is amazing.”Īmid the hype and intensity of boxing it is easy to forget the people who matter most to the fighters themselves. “The fact that we’re here now, nine years on, is crazy. Mia is 32, like her husband, and that memory blurs with the reality racing towards them at the Vitality Stadium this weekend. If I’ve done that, then I’m going to be happy on my deathbed’.”
Chris said: ‘I want to be world champion. “I asked him: ‘If you were on your deathbed, what would be the one thing in your life you would want to have achieved?’ For me my No 1 goal was to be a mum. “We were lying in bed around four in the morning, when you have those silly chats,” Mia says as she remembers how she and Chris first shared their deepest hopes soon after they met in 2014. Okolie has since left McGuigan’s gym and, at last, Billam-Smith has the chance to fight for a world title. Chris Billam-Smith fights Lawrence Okolie for the WBO world cruiserweight title in a fascinating yet dangerous clash between two boxers who worked alongside each other for years under their joint trainer Shane McGuigan. “I t’s always been his dream,” Mia Billam-Smith says on a tranquil morning in Bournemouth as she describes the motivation she and her husband, Chris, will feel on Saturday night in their home town.
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