By Mohamed Bahaa
Rising heavyweight champion Martin Bakole has been attracting attention not only for his recent successes, but also for his reports of tough sparring sessions with some of the most well-known athletes. With a stunning fifth-round stoppage, 31-year-old Bakole recently delivered a career-defining performance that halted the rise of American heavyweight rising star Jared Anderson.
Bakole has frequently expressed his frustration at being passed over by elite boxers, attributing this resistance to his training performance. He stated that many elite heavyweight boxers would avoid signing contracts to face him because of the damage he caused them in sparring, and said he was “the most avoided man on the planet.”
Bakole proudly claimed that behind closed doors he had beaten several elite boxers. “Ask anyone about me,” Bakole challenged. “Ask Daniel Dubois about me, ask Joshua about me, ask Usyk about me, ask Tyson Fury about me, they’ll shut up. Nobody will say they made it hard for me. I made it hard for all of them. I stopped Daniel Dubois twice, stopped Joe Joyce and Joshua, oh that was a big blow, he was hurt that day.”
Anthony Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn confirmed Bakole’s sparring sessions with Joshua in a previous interview. Hearn called the exchanges “wars,” suggesting the sessions were significantly more competitive than Bakole may have implied. “I think he’s had some great sparring sessions. I’ve seen him spar with AJ. Wars. I don’t know, he’s dropped Usyk, right? Or he’s dropped Dubois or whatever? I’m sure he can drop anybody… Sometimes you go into a sparring match, you get hurt, maybe you’re not on it, maybe you’ve got a little pull. That’s boxing,” Hearn said.
Bakole is moving up the heavyweight division, but is confident that their previous interactions in the gym will never lead to a fight with Joshua. Starting with his upcoming fight against Daniel Dubois, Bakole wants to continue moving up the division while Joshua works to reclaim the heavyweight title. Fans have expressed interest in a potential fight between Chinese left-hander Zhilei Zhang – a matchup that has already been approved by Riyadh Season’s Turki Al Sheikh.
Now that Bakole’s name is regularly mentioned among the heavyweight elite, stories of his sparring sessions further deepen the mystery surrounding his future moves in the division.