Ten years ago in Rio, Tony Yoka won the Olympic super-heavyweight gold medal, and he is still dreaming of winning the world heavyweight championship as a professional boxer.
During the last 70 years, only six of 18 Olympic heavyweight champions have gone on to win the world title. It is an elite club, and it looked like Yoka’s hopes of joining it were finished four years ago, when he lost three fights on the spin.
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On Saturday in Paris, his hometown, he fights Lawrence Okolie, who also boxed at the Rio Olympics. It is a fight to decide both of their futures; Yoka must win, Okolie is expected to win, and that is what makes it so special.
Former cruiserweight champion Lawrence Okolie is eyeing heavyweight gold (Getty)
Yoka is only 33, a perfect age for a heavyweight to start winning real tiles, and the trio of losses now seems like part of the troubled journey and not a sign of his decline.
“There was a lot going on in my life back then and a lot going wrong,” said Yoka. “I have slowly been putting my life and my career back together.”
In the summer of 2024, with his home city gripped by Olympic fever, Yoka was fighting for his life at a leisure centre in south London. He had been invited to be a significant part of the spectacular opening ceremony, but instead fought for a just a few thousand pounds on an obscure show the same weekend as Paris was lit with the Olympic flame.
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It was the first win after the defeats, and it started this part of his boxing journey.
The defeats initially looked devastating, but closer analysis reveals an alternative view: two of the three losses were against leading contenders in Martin Bakole and Carlos Takam, two were split decisions, and the third was a majority decision. Furthermore, Yoka had passed a series of good tests before the setbacks, stopping Dave Allen, Alexander Dimitrenko and Johann Duhaupas.
Okolie, who is from Hackney, represented GB and lost early at the Rio Olympics, but after turning professional he was dominant at cruiserweight – winning and defending the WBO version before a sensible move to heavyweight. There was a tiny stop to add the WBC’s bridgerweight belt to his collection in 2024, too.
Tony Yoka (right) won Olympic gold against Britain’s Joe Joyce in 2016 (Getty)
Okolie is untested and unbeaten in three fights as a heavyweight and is ranked very highly. He is now 60lb heavier than in his cruiserweight days and looks like a natural heavyweight. Yoka is 6ft 7in and about the same weight.
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This is one of those crucial fights that slips under the radar: both boxers desperately need to win. There is a role in the grand heavyweight scheme available to Saturday’s winner, while the loser becomes the latest test for the next kid on the block.
On the same night in Las Vegas, Jarrell “Big Baby” Miller, last seen winning a fight but losing his toupee, continues his backyard ascent in the heavyweight division when he meets Lenier Pero, the unbeaten Cuban exile who also fought at the Rio Olympics.
Jarrell Miller lost his hair in his last fight but must keep his head to become a world-title contender (Getty)
It is a good test for both men and, once again, the winner gets an invite to the big party. Miller simply will not go away and Pero, who is the oldest looking 33-year-old on the circuit, has that Cuban pedigree to make this fight very interesting – like the one in Paris on the same evening.
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The heavyweight season continues and, on Saturday, two men will get eliminated and two will enter the latter stages. With Okolie ranked in the top 10 by the IBF and WBC, he may yet emerge as an unlikely contender for unified champion Oleksandr Usyk, while Miller is a top-10 heavyweight in the WBA’s eyes.
Either way, Yoka’s overdue homecoming is the fight to watch.
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