Oleksandr Usyk may discover two new contenders as part of shake-up at heavyweight
On Saturday, top-10 heavyweights Lawrence Okolie and Jarrell Miller are in action, with Okolie facing Tony Yoka in the latter’s Paris homecoming
Ten years ago in Rio, Tony Yoka won the Olympic super-heavyweight gold medal, and he is still dreaming of winning the world heavyweight championship as a professional boxer. During the last 70 years, only six of 18 Olympic heavyweight champions have gone on to win the world title. It is an elite club, and it looked like Yoka’s hopes of joining it were finished four years ago, when he lost three fights on the spin.
On Saturday in Paris, his hometown, he fights Lawrence Okolie , who also boxed at the Rio Olympics. It is a fight to decide both of their futures; Yoka must win, Okolie is expected to win, and that is what makes it so special. Former cruiserweight champion Lawrence Okolie is eyeing heavyweight gold (Getty) Yoka is only 33, a perfect age for a heavyweight to start winning real tiles, and the trio of losses now seems like part of the troubled journey and not a sign of his decline.
“There was a lot going on in my life back then and a lot going wrong,” said Yoka. “I have slowly been putting my life and my career back together. ” In the summer of 2024, with his home city gripped by Olympic fever, Yoka was fighting for his life at a leisure centre in south London.
He had been invited to be a significant part of the spectacular opening ceremony, but instead fought for a just a few thousand pounds on an obscure show the same weekend as Paris was lit with the Olympic flame. It was the first win after the defeats, and it started this part of his boxing journey. The defeats initially looked devastating, but closer analysis reveals an alternative view: two of the three losses were against leading contenders in Martin Bakole and Carlos Takam, two were split decisions, and the third was a majority decision.