IT MAY sound like a cliché, but every fighter, at some point in their career, needs a fresh start; a chance to shake things up a little.
Not wishing to become stagnant, they may choose to join forces with a different coach or perhaps add new elements to their current training setup.
Whatever the case may be, it is often because they have hit a plateau in the gym. It is crucial that a fighter recognises when change is needed.
For Olympic champion Tony Yoka, that moment came shortly after he suffered back-to-back-to-back defeats against Martin Bakole, Carlos Takam and Ryad Merhy.
With the last of these in December 2023, the Frenchman knew, by then, that his stint with head coach Virgil Hunter had reached its natural conclusion.
Having been with Hunter since his professional debut in 2017, Yoka had found that, after years of locking himself away for months on end, the isolating nature of each training camp was beginning to take its toll on his mental state.
“I was lonely over there [in the US],” he tells Boxing News. “And it was tough, especially in the last two years, because a lot of people quit the gym.
“Andre Ward retired, then Amir Khan retired. The gym used to be full but, by the end, it was just me and Joshua Buatsi.
“The US is also too far away [from France]. I was missing my kids, and you don’t really know why you’re doing all of this training when you go back home by yourself every day, spending three or four months on your own.”
Indeed, with five children living in Paris, it is hardly surprising that Yoka could no longer justify the distance between them.
“When I go into a training camp, there’s a lot of suffering, but when I come back home [to Paris], I get a lot of love from my kids,” he continues.
“You need motivation [in boxing], and I’m at an age now [33] where I want to build a legacy for my kids. I want them to be proud of me, and refer to me as someone who did something with his life.
“[Becoming a father] just gives you a little more focus. You can’t go to bed late, because they’re going to wake your ass up at 7am, so [his kids] give me a good routine.”
On top of everything else, part of Yoka’s decision to abandon his familiar system with Hunter was inspired by a major life event.
All of a sudden, his career was in jeopardy, and with three blemishes on his record offering a constant reminder – almost taunting him – Yoka felt he was stuck between a rock and a hard place, desperately trying to rediscover his former identity.
“I’m not trying to find any excuses but, at that time, I’d just gone through a divorce, then my training wasn’t going well and I just kept losing,” he recalls.
“After the third loss, I was just like, ‘I can’t continue like this, losing to opponents that I’m supposed to be beating.’
“I needed to find myself again and get back that fighting spirit – the thing that made me an Olympic champion. Back then [in 2016], I was confident, hungry, and ready to fulfil my destiny.
“God blessed me with a higher boxing IQ than other heavyweights, which is why I was able to become a gold medallist really young [24 years old].
“But, with boxing, if you’re not 100%, mentally, then you’re not going to be good in the ring.”
In an effort to base himself in the UK, where he knew that top-notch heavyweight sparring would be in prolific supply, Yoka went on the hunt for a new trainer.
It turned out to be a short search, as if everything he was looking for happened to fall on his lap.
“Sometimes in your life, you need to go somewhere else to find a new challenge, and that’s what I’ve found with Don Charles,” Yoka says.
“I was supposed to meet with a lot of coaches, but the first time I met with Don, I was like, ‘OK, I’m going to stay with him.’
“It was his mindset, his mentality. I didn’t even train with him but, as soon as I talked to him, I just knew we would have a good relationship.
“I need to have a special relationship with my coach, like he’s my dad. In the ring, you can get knocked out, or even die, so you need to trust your coach blindly when he asks you to do something.”
But no sooner had Yoka sparked a bond with Charles than he almost tossed it away, downing his tools in protest after being told he could not spar with Daniel Dubois.
With Dubois under the tutelage of Charles at the time, it was as if the then-IBF champion represented a shiny new toy for Yoka, albeit one which, rather cruelly, he was not allowed to play with.
Eventually, though, the Parisian managed to convince his new trainer to change his mind. And, from the sounds of it, the rounds that the two heavyweights shared behind closed doors most certainly did not disappoint.
“Don Charles didn’t want us to spar at first, and I was pissed off,” Yoka admits. “At that point, I just said I would stop coming to the gym.
“I was seeing guys, who aren’t good, getting knocked out [by Dubois] in sparring, and they were getting paid.
“But I wasn’t asking for any money; I just wanted to spar him. Then, when we finally sparred, the whole gym went silent.
“When I got out of the ring, everyone was like, ‘Woah’ – they were shocked. It was really good sparring.”
While sparring stories make for good dinner table conversations, or soundbites to promote a fight, Yoka is now looking to elevate his profile with something far more tangible.
More than anything, he is eager to prove himself against an elite opponent – especially after amassing three victories against little-known customers – and while his name has been linked with Anthony Joshua for quite some time, Yoka believes that particular ship has sailed.
“I never refuse any opponents – that’s why I was the first to fight Bakole,” he says. “Now that I’m with Frank Warren and Queensberry [Promotions], I just want to be in the mix.
“I’m not really thinking about [Joshua] right now. If it happens, then yes, I would take the fight. But I just need to stay focused on my career.
“I’d like to be out at the beginning of the year, maybe January or February. I had Frank Warren on the phone [last week], and I know he’s going to give me something good.
“I don’t know the opponent, or the date, but I need to stay ready. If they call me and ask if I can fight Tyson Fury [for example] in eight weeks, I’ll be in shape.”
With his next assignment fast approaching, Yoka finds it difficult to believe that, even now, his reputation as a clean athlete remains somewhat stained.
This is because the Rio Olympian was banned by the French anti-doping association in 2018, shortly after he missed three drug tests in the space of a year.
In a sport where fighters often provide little to no information regarding such situations, though, Yoka is at least open to sharing his interpretation of what happened.
“That was really bad,” he says. “In France, you have to tell them [testing agents] where you are every day of the year, even if you’re not fighting.
“When I won my gold medal [in Rio], I took five months off and, during those five months, I didn’t tell them where I was, not thinking that it would be a problem. Then I got banned.
“The problem is that people saw ‘ban’ and accused me of being a cheater – but I never cheated!
“There’s a lot of fighters that cheated and came back, like Tyson Fury, Dillian Whyte, ‘Big Baby’ [Jarrell Miller], but I never got caught with anything.”
Whether fans choose to believe Yoka is, of course, entirely up to them. Either way, ‘La Conquete’ looks to become a more familiar face on the British boxing scene, especially with Warren and Charles now at the helm.
