Draft:Mikael Lawal

Mikael Lawal is a British professional boxer who held the British cruiserweight title until October 2023.

Professional career
Lawal made his professional debut in April 2017, defeating Jindrich Velecky via a 1st-round TKO win.

He got his first big break on 14 October 2017 featuring on the undercard of George Groves versus Jamie Cox, at Wembley Arena defeating Tomislav Rudan in two rounds.

After signing with Sauerland Promotions, he got another fight on the undercard of a major fight, featuring on the undercard of the WBC and WBO title fight between Mairis Briedis and Oleksandr Usyk in Arena Riga,Latvia.

Early life
Lawal was born in Lagos, Nigeria but moved to the UK aged 1. He lived in the UK until the age of 13 when he moved back to Nigeria with his mother, who died a short while later. Lawal, then aged 14, moved in with his birth father and his stepmother. He did not get along with his stepmother, who used to tell his father lies about him so that he would be beaten. Eventually Lawal ran away from home, where he lived on the streets for a short period before visiting the British High Commission where he was able to be placed in an orphanage, before eventually receiving a temporary passport and returning to the UK aged 16.

After living with friends despite having family in London, Lawal began living in a hostel where his key worker referred him to boxing as a means to deal with his behaviour and anger issues, Lawal immediately took an interest to the sport but after a while began to struggle with the financial commitments to pay for training and finding a suitable amateur club. After a recommendation from one of his cousins, he visited Stonebridge Amateur Boxing Club where he rekindled his love for boxing and was eventually offered access to the gym free of charge by Aamir Ali, the clubs Director, as he saw the potential in Lawal. He then had a short amateur career of 9 fights before turning pro.