{"id":473557,"date":"2026-03-13T14:29:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T14:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/473557\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T14:29:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T14:29:07","slug":"anthony-joshua-tyson-fury-and-martin-bakole-all-on-one-heavyweights-hit-list-its-personal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/473557\/","title":{"rendered":"Anthony Joshua, Tyson Fury and Martin Bakole all on one heavyweight’s hit list: “It’s personal”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anthony Joshua<\/a>, Tyson Fury<\/a> and Martin Bakole<\/a> are all being targeted by a world-ranked heavyweight contender, with Bakole representing a particularly \u201cpersonal\u201d option.<\/p>\n

The 34-year-old has not fought since his controversial draw with Efe Ajagba<\/a> in May, when many believed he should have been handed a points defeat.<\/p>\n

Prior to that, Bakole had suffered a second-round stoppage loss to Joseph Parker<\/a>, who he faced on just two days\u2019 notice, which followed his stunning fifth-round finish over Jared Anderson.<\/p>\n

It was back in 2022, though, that the Congolese giant claimed arguably a more surprising upset victory by edging a majority decision against Tony Yoka.<\/p>\n

Back then, this was considered little more than a development fight for Yoka, who had crafted an unbeaten record after claiming gold at the Rio Olympics in 2016.<\/p>\n

After losing to Bakole, though, the Frenchman later suffered split decision defeats to Carlos Takam and Ryad Merhy, before reigniting his career with four wins on the bounce.<\/p>\n

Now gearing up to face former world cruiserweight champion Lawrence Okolie at the Adidas Arena, Paris, on April 25, the 33-year-old hopes to eventually exact his revenge on Bakole.<\/p>\n

Speaking with Playbook Boxing<\/a>, Yoka \u2013 who is of Congolese descent \u2013 named Bakole, Joshua and Fury as three potential opponents after his clash with Okolie.<\/p>\n

\u201cI need to beat Bakole \u2013 that\u2019s personal. That\u2019s the first fight I lost, we\u2019re both from the same country [The Democratic Republic of the Congo] and we need to make that happen over there, in Kinshasa.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I need to beat Bakole first, then I would love to fight Anthony. That would be a great fight, just because it would be so big \u2013 especially in my country [France]. It would be two Olympic gold medallists fighting in a stadium.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd why not Tyson Fury? Tyson Fury\u2019s one of the greatest [heavyweight] boxers ever. He\u2019s so strange, but also he\u2019s just too good.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is yet to become clear who Joshua will face in his comeback fight, which has been slated for July by Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn.<\/p>\n

Fury, meanwhile, will face Arslanbek Makhmudov at London\u2019s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on April 11 after ending his year-long retirement in January.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anthony Joshua, Tyson Fury and Martin Bakole are all being targeted by a world-ranked heavyweight contender, with Bakole…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-473557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}