Five months after his third defeat in a row in the heavyweight category, against the Belgian Ryad Merhy, Tony Yoka plans to return to the ring in the coming weeks, for the first time abroad, in England, even if no date nor an opponent have been officially announced.
At the bottom of the wave when he is now 31 years old, the 2016 Olympic champion received encouragement from an illustrious heavyweight, Anthony Joshua, who also went through a bad patch but who is coming out of a highly publicized fight against Francis Ngannou, dominated by KO in the second round on March 8 in Jeddah. The Briton, who won Olympic gold in London in 2012, gave an interview to L’Équipe.
“It doesn’t matter, don’t give up. I too have experienced three failures. So what ? Tony can still write his story. Everyone traces their own path, we don’t need to have the destiny of Elon Musk. Maybe Tony will never become world champion but that’s not the main thing. The main thing is between him and him. Does he feel like he’s giving it his all? To do your best? That’s what counts. On judgment day, the questions will be: Did he work hard, be a good family man? Did he help people, treat them with respect? True victory is being able to give the best of yourself. It’s not because you haven’t become the best that you have failed,” explained Anthony Joshua with insight, who was able to recover from two painful defeats against Olexandr Usyk. Two setbacks which had cast doubt on his ability to once again become one of the men to beat in the premier category.
Joshua seems convinced that Yoka made the right choices in opting for a new coach: “Right now he’s in tough times but he has to set super high goals and never give up. He is so talented. I see that he made the sacrifice to come live in London, to train with a new coach (Don Charles, who trained Joshua). It’s good. It goes beyond his mind, it acts on the cellular dimension of his body. His inner chemistry is maturing, he will succeed in finding how to honor his talent.
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