Just days after Joe Joyce’s surprise defeat to Derek Chisora there are plenty questioning whether the 38-year-old should return to the ring. However, one heavyweight has now revealed that he was the original planned opponent for a showdown with Joyce this summer, and that Joyce elected to instead take on ‘Del Boy’ – a decision that he may be reflecting upon with serious regret now.
The steep decline of Joe Joyce is one that has taken fans in the United Kingdom by surprise, witnessing ‘The Juggernaut’ fall from his WBO mandatory challenger position to a damning defeat to Derek Chisora – that being the last in a quartet of disappointments for the Rio 2016 Olympic silver medallist.
Back-to-back knockout defeats to China’s Zhilei Zhang in 2023 saw his formidable chin cracked and a comeback win over Kash Ali earlier this year was met with an overwhelming sense of disappointment, regardless of the victory. Saturday night was simply a ‘do or die’ in the eyes of many and a ninth-round knockdown for the veteran Chisora proved decisive on the scorecards, stamping out any remaining embers of world title hope for Putney-born Joyce.
Yet, speaking to iFL TV, Martin Bakole has now revealed that Frank Warren originally gave him the call for the fight and that is was Joyce himself who made the decision to face Chisora instead, as the Congolese contender explained why he and his trainer (Billy Nelson) are so open about sparring stories.
“Sometimes I feel bad talking about sparring because some stuff needs to just stay in the gym, but sometimes I have to because I have been living in the U.K. for 18 years now and none of these top guys in the U.K. want to fight me. I have been calling them out and nobody has come out and said ‘yes, I want to fight Martin Bakole’.
“One example is Joe Joyce, Frank Warren came and called us and said ‘are you ready to fight Joe Joyce?’, I was in Congo, I wasn’t even training and I said ‘yes, I will fight him’. They go back to Joe Joyce and he said no, then they picked Chisora and look what happened with the result!
“They are scared because they know who Martin Bakole is in sparring, don’t judge me because I have to sell myself. In America, nobody knows who Martin Bakole is because I am in the U.K. and in the U.K. nobody wants to give me that big opportunity to sell myself out there, they know what I have been doing to them in sparring.
“That is the reason why me and my coach come out and tell the stories of why they are avoiding me because if they say yes to fighting me, then I would not talk about sparring and that would stay in the gym.”
Martin Bakole will return to the ring on Saturday night as he makes his U.S. debut against the highly-rated Jared Anderson on the stellar Israil Madrimov vs. Terence Crawford card in Los Angeles.
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