Met at his training site, four days before his next fight, crucial for the rest of his professional career, Tony Yoka (31) said he was ready to make a new start.
Determination can be seen in his eyes: “I don’t want to feed my detractors.” Tony Yoka (31 years old) knows it, nine months after his last failed pugilistic encounter against the Franco-Cameroonian Carlos Takam, this next fight against the Belgian Ryad Mehry, former light heavyweight in the category, is akin to a last luck Saturday December 9, at Roland-Garros.
The world heavyweight title, the objective of his conquest, has moved away, but the Frenchman Tony Yoka (32nd in the world ranking) has not completely given up on adding a major professional title to his record. But to continue to believe in it, he first had to change everything, from where he lived to his training structure. Based in London now, Yoka left the United States and the American Virgil Hunter to join the Englishman Don Charles, a heavyweight specialist.
“Show that we made the right choices”
“I can’t wait to be in the ring to express myself, to show my audience and my team that we are ready, that we have made the right choices,” a calm Tony Yoka told us this Tuesday , at the Temple du Noble Art, a judo hall in the 17th arrondissement, during training open to the media. The Frenchman sees this fight as an opportunity to “return to the boxer he was”, a sharp boxer, “who has impact in his gloves”.
But for his boxing to be astounding, Tony Yoka also needed to put his personal life in order, and to get closer to his children, who lived in France when he was training on the other side of the Atlantique: “Over the last two years, it has been complicated in my personal life, and it was felt in the ring. The last fight made me realize that things were not going well, I didn’t recognize myself in the ring there was nothing. No impact or desire, no explosiveness.”
This return to Europe allowed him to reduce the distance that had separated him for too many years from his children, “my oxygen”. “I wanted to move to be close to my family, my children. I can come home every weekend to clear my mind and go back to training with my batteries recharged. I didn’t see the interest in moving train, to do everything I did, if I wasn’t happy. I do a sport that is hard. When you do a sport as hard as boxing and you don’t enjoy it, you can’t do it arrive.”
If he preferred to take his time to refine his preparation and increase his chances of bouncing back as quickly as he fell from his pedestal, Tony Yoka is impatient: “I’m really looking forward to it. I’m not coming to “have fun”, he warned us with a smirk, in reference to a provocation from his future opponent. Ryad Merhy (30 years old), who has not boxed since May, and a loss on points against the South African Kevin Lerena, has a record of 31 victories, including 26 before the limit, for two defeats. Tony Yoka remains with two defeats, the first two setbacks of his professional career.
Top Articles
2023-12-06 08:30:11
#peaceful #life #sharp #ring #Tony #Yoka #longer #prove #detractors
