French heavyweight Tony Yoka continued his rebuild in Swindon, a small town in the U.K. a fortnight ago and a week before his stablemate, Daniel Dubois, defended his IBF heavyweight title against Anthony Joshua on a huge night in Wembley Stadium.
Both train under Don Charles. Yoka is 13-3 (11 KOs) and recently signed with promoter Frank Warren and the 2016 Rio Olympic gold medalist has won his last two after three consecutive losses, to Martin Bakole, Carlos Takam, and Ryad Merhy.
Charles maintains high hopes for the 32-year-old from Paris.
“He’s the next one, coming through silently in the background,” said Charles. “Again, he’s with Frank Warren, who’s an architect and an engineer, this is an Olympic gold medalist, and when Tony first started working with myself, one of the first meetings we had, I said to him, ‘Do you want to go down in history as the third boxer to have won the Olympic super-heavyweight gold and not gone on to become a heavyweight world champion?’ There have been two, previously, Tyrell Biggs and Audley Harrison, so Tony Yoka, I don’t want him to fall into that category of being only one of three to have won Olympic super-heavyweight gold and not converted it to being world champion.
“We’re working to make sure that’s not the case.”
Charles admitted he wanted Yoka to get some reps under his belt away from the bright lights, so the Frenchman has boxed an eight-rounder against Amine Boucetta, whom he stopped in four rounds in Tolworth in July, and he defeated Lamah Griggs in two rounds in Swindon on September 7.
“That was the whole idea,” Charles said, of Yoka’s quiet build under his tutelage. “When you become a superstar overnight, which is what happened to him when he won gold in Rio for France, he will be the first to admit, he bought his own hype.
“What it is, the public is really quick to write you off, before you can cross the line to succeed. So, back to the drawing board. Being humble. Being around me. I’m a very straight shooter, I’ll tell you how it is, and I have every belief, with Frank Warren guiding him and promoting him, with me training him and the team, he’s definitely a contender.”
Yoka and Dubois have been able to bring one another on, too, sparring ahead of their respective fights.
“It was very helpful,” Charles admitted of having both in camp. “Anthony Joshua being a gold medalist, super heavyweight, so we had an Olympic gold medalist, super heavyweight, in camp sparring Daniel. And he’s a brilliant technician, Tony Yoka. He’s got everything, and he was very instrumental in our prep. We had Frazer Clarke, a bronze medalist from Tokyo.”
With Nick Campbell, Boma Brown, Franklin Ignatius and Hosea Stewart also in camp, Charles said they’ve had “the right personnel”.
“Different styles for different reasons,” added Charles.
“They gave us a lot of good, competitive rounds, which aided Daniel to do what he did last Saturday.”
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