The latest boxing news from Barking & Dagenham

Lawrence Okolie plans to take another step towards his own world champion dream when he takes to the ring at Wembley Stadium on Saturday night.

The ex-Dagenham amateur faces Matty Askin for the British cruiserweight title on the undercard of Anthony Joshua’s defence of his world heavyweight titles against Russia’s Alexander Povetkin.

The 25-year-old has already won the WBA continental title and the Commonwealth belt this year and sees British strap as the next step on his way to global glory.

“My ultimate goal is to be the unified world champion and I want to go down the traditional route: clean up domestically and prove to myself and the fans that I belong at that level,” he said.

“Matty is a very experienced fighter who is ranked in the top 10 in the world.

“I want to make my way towards the world scene and so I need to be able to beat people like Matty to do that.

“I’ve won the Commonwealth title in my first two years and I want to keep that trajectory going by winning the British title and hopefully winning a world title before the next Olympics.”

Okolie’s promoter Eddie Hearn added: “Lawrence is continuously surprising me with his desire to step up, but this is by far his biggest jump.

“I rate Askin very highly and he has shown much improvement in his last couple of fights. This is another genuine 50-50 fight for the undercard.”

*On Friday, the busy MTK London group return to the Brentwood Centre with a packed show headed by an English title clash between super welterweights Billy Bird and Adam Harper.

Area fighters in action on Friday’s bill include Sammy McNess, Danny Dignum, Matt McCarthy and Tey Lynn Jones.

*‘Boleyn Boy’ Mark Little made it eight straight wins as a pro by clearly outpointing Lithuanian veteran Remi Ziausys at York Hall on Saturday.

Little, who is trained by Dagenham coach Paul Cook, dominated the clash at long range for a 60-55 win over his latest rival and now aims to step up for an Area title chance.