When France’s Tony Yoka won gold at the World Championships in 2015, then followed that with a gold at the 2016 Olympic Games, it appeared as though the heavyweight division had found its Next Big Thing. All he had to do now was turn professional and translate this amateur success into the pro ranks, where Yoka would find the fame and fortune every heavyweight ultimately seeks. 

It wasn’t just his credentials, either. At 6’7, Yoka had the modern-day heavyweight frame and was quick with it. He even had the kind of charisma one would typically look for in a young heavyweight; the kind that can make them a commercial success and help supplement their income with endorsements.

Because of all this, it didn’t take long for Yoka to be convinced to turn pro. By June 2017, in fact, he had made his debut in a headline fight at Paris’ Palais des Sports and was well on his way to becoming everything everybody said he would become. Two more wins followed that year and soon, in 2018, he was stopping Britain’s Dave Allen inside 10 rounds. Beyond that, he stopped Michael Wallisch in three and Johann Duhaupas in one, before he was taken the 10-round distance for the first time by Christian Hammer. 

With additional wins over Joel Djeko and Peter Milas, Yoka made it to 11-0, doing so with relative ease. His only issue in those formative years arrived in July 2018 when the French Anti-Doping Agency banned him for one year on account of him missing three drug tests between July 2016 and July 2017.

It wasn’t until 2022, though, that the wheels properly came off. That was the year Yoka met Martin Bakole, the Congolese heavyweight based in Scotland, and suffered his first professional loss. Beaten on a majority decision, suddenly Yoka was no longer everything everybody said he was. Now, in the eyes of his critics, he had been “found out” or “exposed”. He had lost his unbeaten record and with it much the hype that had fuelled his professional journey to that point. 

It then got worse the following year when Yoka lost again, not once but twice. His first loss that year came against his countryman Carlos Takam, who beat him by 10-round split decision, while the second was inflicted by Belgium’s Ryad Merhy, who also edged him on a split. These, admittedly, were both close fights and close decisions, but still Yoka, given his credentials and early hype, should have been beating men like Takam and Merhy, many felt. 

Since those losses Yoka has regrouped, tweaked a few things, and is back on a winning run. From July 2024 to now he is unbeaten, having won four fights on the spin, three by stoppage. Better yet, on April 25 in Paris he steps up in competition once more in a crucial fight against Lawrence Okolie, the former WBO cruiserweight champion from England. It is a fight Yoka not only must win, but one he feels prepared for; ready for it in a way he perhaps wouldn’t have been in years gone by. At the age of 33 (almost 34), Yoka now feels as though he understands both himself and the expectations of others a little better. 

“England and France are two different countries,” he told Sky Sports. “You love boxing here. You have a lot of boxing fans. You have a lot of heavyweights – like 10 big heavyweights. We don’t have any in France. I was the first ever to qualify for the Olympic Games. So then when I became Olympic champion, it was like boom, I was a star. I wasn’t prepared. You think you’re just unbeatable; you’re too good. When an Olympic champion like Anthony Joshua turned pro, he was fighting on undercards. But I could not fight on undercards. I was main event in my first fight. The TV [people] said, ‘Tony, I understand what you are saying, but I cannot put anybody else after you because people are going to leave.’”

Almost nine years have passed since that first professional fight and Yoka – a big fish in a small pond – has in that time seen plenty of people leave. Some have left his fights, while others have left his bandwagon, having given up on him becoming the world heavyweight champion they once told others he would inevitably become. 

Who knows, with defeats triggering an exodus, Yoka, 15-3 (12 KOs), might now feel a bit lighter around the shoulders and in the head. Maybe now, in fact, he is better equipped than he has ever been to relax, perform, and show the world what he can do.