Martin Bakole is making noise again. This time, he’s claiming that not even Oleksandr Usyk—the undisputed heavyweight champion—could handle him when the two shared sparring sessions. According to Bakole, Usyk left the ring bloodied and beaten, even stopped.
Speaking to Seconds Out, Bakole said with a smile: “Usyk knows himself. Every time I go there to spar him, I always give him trouble. Ask his team, he knows. He was bleeding everywhere.” His coach has even echoed the story, doubling down on the idea that Bakole floored the division’s pound-for-pound king.
Sparring Stories vs Real Fights
Sparring sessions are often manipulated—shorter rounds, specific drills, fighters rotating in fresh to test a tired man. A “stop” in sparring doesn’t mean a knockout under the lights. It can mean a body shot folding someone who was already half-spent from previous rounds. It can mean a coach calling it off. Gym stories have always been exaggerated currency in boxing, used to build mystique.
Usyk himself dismissed the chatter. “People shouldn’t necessarily believe everything they hear,” he said. And he has a point. If Bakole truly dominated Usyk, you’d expect a wave of neutral witnesses to back him up. There’s none.
Why Bakole’s Claim Doesn’t Add Up
Look at the actual records. Usyk has beaten Joshua twice, Fury twice, Dubois twice, and never looked close to being stopped in a real fight. Meanwhile, Bakole’s résumé shows a second-round knockout loss to Joseph Parker, a draw with Efe Ajagba, and only flashes of the dangerous heavyweight he sometimes promises to be. That’s not the profile of a man casually bullying the undisputed champ in sparring.
This isn’t to say Bakole didn’t have moments—he’s big, awkward, and can hit—but to claim he stopped Usyk “bleeding everywhere” without evidence? That’s chest-beating, not fact.
Bakole’s words are entertaining, but that’s all they are. Sparring is a place to sharpen tools, not rewrite history. Unless he beats Usyk in a real fight, it means nothing. Right now, it reads like another fighter talking up gym folklore to stay relevant. And the truth? Usyk is still the man until someone proves otherwise under real lights, with real judges, and real consequences.
