Mathieu WARNIER, Media365, published on Saturday May 14, 2022 at 11:52 p.m.
Counted twice, including once in the first round, Tony Yoka lost for the first time as a professional boxer against Martin Bakole.
Tony Yoka is no longer undefeated. After eleven successes in eleven fights, the last last September at Roland-Garros against Petar Milas, the 2016 Olympic super-heavyweight champion experienced the first real setback in his professional career on the occasion of a intense duel against Martin Bakole in the ring of the Accor Arena in Paris-Bercy. A fight that the representative of the Democratic Republic of Congo, younger brother of the WBC light-heavyweight world champion Junior Ilunga Makabu and sparring partner of Tyson Fury, started in the best way. Imposing heavy and powerful blows from the first round, Martin Bakole immediately put Tony Yoka in difficulty. The Frenchman, for the first time in his professional career, was counted out by the referee. The Parisian was then able to resume the fight but without having the ardor and the activity which could have been his in the past. Difficulties that continued throughout the first half of the fight. After a slip, Tony Yoka was counted a second time but without the referee stopping the fight.
Bakole too solid for Listen
Under the advice of his entourage, “The Artist” regained momentum and placed sharp blows which allowed him to gain an ascendancy in the fight but without managing to completely reverse the trend of a fight so badly started. Solid, Martin Bakole showed himself to be superior and, in a last round during which the two boxers never ceased to chamber each other and provoke the reaction of the Parisian public, no knockout came and it was the judges who made the decision, which was shared. If one of the three judges could not decide between the two boxers, the two others ruled in favor of Martin Bakole (96-92, 95-93, 94-94), who thus inflicted on Tony Yoka his first defeat as a as a professional boxer. “Today, Martin was the strongest in the ring, everyone could see him, confided the Frenchman, visibly disappointed with his performance. It’s time to go back to work and maybe change some things. “While he must soon challenge Agit Kabayel for the European belt, Tony Yoka will first have to digest this setback.
