Martin Bakole “Doesn’t Think Usyk Will Say Yes” To Fighting Him
Heavyweight contender Martin Bakole says he is not sure Oleksandr Usyk will ever “say yes” in regards to fighting him, this because he knocked Usyk out during a sparring session that took place in Dubai. Speaking with Sky Sports, the Congolese warrior also said he took out Daniel Dubois in sparring – not once, but twice.
Bakole, a real bear of a strong heavyweight who is coming off a ‘he-might-have-ruined-him’ win over Tony Yoka, says the top names of the heavyweight division “are hiding away because they don’t want to fight me.”
“Even Usyk, I don’t think he’d say yes [to fighting me] because I stopped him in Dubai in sparring,”
Bakole said. “He knows how good I am. I don’t know if he will say yes again to fight me as well. I am telling the truth.”
Bakole, if he is telling the truth, is also guilty of deviating from the unwritten moral code that reads ‘what happens in sparring stays in sparring.’ Still, you cannot really blame Bakole for wanting to get his name out there as much as he can, and this claim – to have KO’d or stopped the top 1, 2 or three pound-for-pound best boxer on the planet is sure to inspire some chatter among fight fans.
Usyk’s guy Alexander Krassyuk has denied the claim, by the way:
“Bakole is a great kid,” Krassyuk said. “He was Usyk’s best sparring partner within [the] last three training camps. But I heard him stopping Usyk just once, and he stopped him from knocking Bakole out.”
With regards to his X2 stoppages of Dubois in sparring, Bakole has not yet had anyone refute his claims. Bakole says that if he fought “Dynamite,” he feels he would probably knock him out “in the first or second round.”
“I sparred him twice and stopped him twice in sparring,” Bakole said of Dubois. “He knows and his team knows, so I think I would stop him in the first or second round. I am looking to the WBA. I have the number two ranking. Why not Daniel Dubois because he is the regular champion right now? I am calling him out.”
A Bakole-Dubois fight would of course be most interesting, but it remains to be seen if this is the route Dubois will want to go down once he has fully healed from the knee injury he picked up in his bizarre fight with Kevin Lerena.
But Bakole is deserving of a big fight opportunity this year. He has earned it by way of scoring seven straight wins since losing to Michael Hunter back in October of 2018.
