Speculation has increased that Anthony Joshua’s return to the ring could take place in December and against the Frenchman Tony Yoka.
Joshua has not boxed since he was emphatically stopped in fiv rounds by Daniel Dubois at London’s Wembley Stadium in September 2024, sparking Joshua’s longest spell of inactivity since he claimed gold at the 2012 London Olympic Games.
Reports persist that Joshua and Jake Paul could still fight in what would be a commercial juggernaut, but Joshua has previously been outspoken about influencer boxing and his trainer, Ben Davison, also recently told BoxingScene he was not a fan of the match up.
Yoka, 33, has been winning on small stages since suffering three losses.
He is trained by Don Charles, who – of course – trained Dubois to defeat Joshua, and the Frenchman recently signed a promotional agreement with Queensberry Promotions, increasing the possibility of Joshua-Yoka, given that Matchroom’s Joshua and Frank Warren’s Yoka share a broadcast partner in DAZN.
Yoka, incidentally, won Olympic super-heavyweight gold four years after Joshua, at the Rio Olympics.
Joshua, 28-4 (25 KOs), went on to hold WBA, WBO, and IBF titles, but Yoka has yet to strike gold in the pros.
However, this week he told French publication L’Equipe that a Joshua bout was “a big possibility.”
The 35-year-old former champion, for his part, encountered French promoter Yohan Zaoui in Southern Cyprus, where Zaoui was on vacation with his wife and kids in Limassol.
“And who do I run into this morning at the pool?”, he told L’Equipe. “Joshua! He's also on vacation with his family, with his younger brother and his nieces and nephews. I chatted with him for a few minutes. He's humble and kind.”
Yoka is 14-3 (11 KOs). In 2022 and 2023 he lost a trio of decisions to Martin Bakole, Carlos Takam, and Ryad Merhy, but he’s won three bouts since, including a 10-round decision over the 16-0 (10 KOs) Arslan Yallyev in May.
“He told me that his next opponent would certainly be French,” Zaoui added. “He told me that he had the option of facing the American YouTuber Jack Paul, but that 90 per cent of the time it would be Yoka. I asked him his prediction. He told me that there was no easy fight.”
