The weights are in for tomorrow’s interesting heavyweight clash between Tony Yoka and Carlos Takam. Yoka, fighting again in Paris, France, France of course being his home country, tipped-in at 251 pounds. French-Cameroonian Takam scaled 259.3 pounds. Both guys seem to be in good physical condition and they may need to be, this being a fight neither guy can afford to lose.
*** Sky Sports will broadcast in the UK, while the fight will be available to stream live on ESPN+ in the U.S ***
Yoka, coming off an at times punishing decision loss to Martin Bakole, can of course ill afford another loss. 30 year old Yoka, who won super heavyweight Olympic gold in Beijing in 2016, is currently 11-1(9). Takam, the significantly older man at age 42, has as we know, fought just about every big name of the heavyweight division in his time. Currently 39-7-1(28) Takam is coming off a decision loss to unbeaten Russian puncher Arslanbek Makhmudov.
Takam, who has been stopped just 4 times, is in need of a win, his last victory coming back in July of 2020, when he decisioned Jerry Forrest. Tomorrow’s fight could prove to be a fun fight, an entertaining slugfest. Both guys can punch as well as take a punch. Yoka, though, may well have had quite a bit of his confidence beaten out of him in that May 2022 loss to Bakole that was quite disgracefully scored as a majority decision win only in favour of the all night long dominant Bakole.
It will be interesting to see how Yoka bounces back, or tries to bounce back, against the seasoned, you could say somewhat grizzled, Takam. A decision fight looks a pretty good bet with this one, this despite the fact that both guys can bang. Yoka took his lumps in the Bakole fight, while Takam has only been stopped by the best (Anthony Joshua, Alexander Povetkin, Derek Chisora and Joe Joyce).
Above all, let’s hope we do get fair and unbiased scoring from the three ringside officials tomorrow night. It really cannot be overstated how bad that near robbery of a Bakole-Yoka fight was.