Aurélie SACCHELLI, Media365, published on Friday, December 31, 2021 at 9:25 a.m.
In an interview with L’Equipe, Tony Yoka returned to the cancellation of his fight against Martin Bakole, but does not lack ambitions for the rest of his career.
Unbeaten in the first eleven fights of his professional career, Tony Yoka (29 years old, 19th in the world) hoped to add a twelfth victory by beating the Congolese Martin Bakole (29 years old, 17th in the world) on January 15 at the Accor Arena. But setting up a 2,000-person gauge for indoor events due to the coronavirus pandemic forced its promoter to cancel because it would not have been economically viable. In an interview with The team this Friday, the 2016 Olympic heavyweight champion did not hide his disappointment. “Frankly, I’m not pissed off. It disgusts me. We can’t tell people two and a half weeks before the deadline that in fact they won’t be able to work. (…) In boxing, we are a bit like casual performers, artists who perform on stage in concert and are deprived of their place of work. We don’t perform every week. A cancellation means months of work lost. I have been training hard in the United States since early October. (…) I took a little morale boost with this cancellation and I need to find my family, to see my children. To then re-mobilize myself and leave. This cancellation is a shame for the French supporters and the boxing here because we were mounting more and more interesting fights. “
Yoka: “People from social networks, I don’t calculate them anymore”
Despite everything, Tony Yoka does not let himself be defeated and is already thinking of the next step, once again affirming his great ambitions, even if for the moment, the best boxers in the heavyweight category are not jostling to face him. “I want to box in the United States, abroad,” he explains. I want to do big fights, to have my say in this category. (…) For me, boxing Martin Bakole, 17th in the world, was a great step. I must continue to climb, I know that I can hang a name (…), guys who are in the World Top 10, even the Top 5. I box everyone. Joshua? But I box him every day. I am not one of those who hide or want to take the least possible risks. Facing Anthony Joshua, 2012 Olympic champion and IBF, WBA, IBO and WBO heavyweight world champion until his loss to Ukrainian Oleksandr Usyk last September, would allow Yoka to receive less criticism on social media, he who is the target because of the alleged weakness of the opponents he has faced so far. But the French boxer does not want to waste any more time reading the comments: “These guys stayed with Travis Clark, my first opponent, who was 300th in the world. Now I am about to face the 17th world. I progress and the people of the social networks hidden behind a nickname, I no longer calculate them. They are ignorant. In France, the general public does not know boxing, it is only if people manage to name three to four names of current boxers. “
