Going into Saturday evening, unbeaten French heavyweight and former Olympic Gold Medalist Tony Yoka had large aspirations to get a heavyweight title shot. Nonetheless, on the Accor Enviornment in Paris veteran contender Martin Bakole of the Congo had different concepts and derailed all of his plans, dominating Yoka in a ten spherical choice.
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The verdict wasn’t indicative of how one sided the action was, as Bakole was given a reasonably shut majority choice 96-92, 95-93 after which, comically, a draw from the third decide 94-94.
🇨🇩 @MartinBakole17 scores two knockdowns en path to a dominant majority choice victory over @TonyYoka in Paris. 🇫🇷
📝 96-92, 95-93 & 94-94
Massive win on away soil! 🔥
🔞 @Betfred Combat Odds: https://t.co/Z2IHYCEUrC#Boxing #YokaBakole pic.twitter.com/NvbEjbsAGJ
— Boxing Social (@boxing_social) May 14, 2022
Bakole scored an early knockdown of Yoka, now 11-1, with a tough overhand proper adopted by a second proper that put the Frenchman down on all fours. That shocked the capability crowd within the area and Bakole by no means regarded again after that, dominating the motion by strolling Yoka down and scoring combos repeatedly whereas banking spherical after spherical.
Yoka suffered a minimize on the surface of his left eye after which, he started to bleed profusely from his nostril from the third spherical from punishment he was taking and bled for the rest of the battle.
Yoka was by no means actually in a position to put sustained offense collectively and gave the impression to be gun-shy about Bakole’s counters all through the battle. Throughout one sequence within the sixth spherical, Bakole, now 18-1, 14 KOs, hammered Yoka with combos after which, paused in the midst of the ring, put his arms out whereas taking a look at Yoka’s nook and gestured like the nook ought to cease the beating Yoka was taking from him.
The Yoka-Bakole bout was to have taken place in January, however was scrapped two weeks earlier than because of Covid 19 issues and limiting of attendance. Yoka then tried to interrupt the contract and battle unbeaten Croatian Filip Hrgovic in a scheduled IBF eliminator bout. Nonetheless, the IBF informed them that Yoka needed to first battle Bakole, which turned catastrophic within the brief time period Saturday evening.
Regardless of the urging of veteran coach Virgil Hunter in his nook, Yoka by no means confirmed any urgency, even within the final two or three rounds of the battle, when it was clear he was being dominated. After all, as soon as the choice was learn, the Paris judges reminded us that horrific scorecards aren’t simply restricted to large fights within the U. Okay. or the USA.
This, as Bakole was hilariously given a 94-94 draw on a card, regardless of simply profitable eight rounds of the battle and scoring two knockdowns of Yoka.
Ultimately the Congan has taken an enormous step in direction of being ranked within the prime 10 with the upset. As for Yoka, it’s again to the drafting board struggling his first professional loss in humiliating vogue when he had excessive hopes for being in big-time fights later this yr and in 2023.
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