The next time Martin Bakole ventures to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia it will be markedly different from the last time. In May, the month he returns, he will know in advance when he is to travel and will be able to plan accordingly. He will also presumably arrive at the airport in more suitable attire – that is, not sweating in tight jeans – and have the luxury of a direct flight and the freedom to stroll from the departure lounge to the gate without fear of missing his flight and ruining everybody’s fun.
Last time, in February, Bakole was unprepared and in a great hurry. He smiled through it all, of course, yet the slapdash nature of his arrival in Riyadh was evident in both what he wore and how much weight he seemed to be carrying – more on his person than in his luggage. Twice the man, but half the fighter, Bakole turned up knowing only the requirements of his assignment and what he would get paid for accepting it. He was then duly stopped inside two rounds by Joseph Parker, the man whose own trip, thanks to Bakole, had not gone to waste.
Ten weeks later, Bakole will return to Riyadh, this time with a score to settle. There will on this occasion be no Joseph Parker in the opposite corner, but that is beside the point. By returning on May 3, which was officially announced on Monday, Bakole is not aiming to beat the opponent who got the better of him in February. He is instead wanting to remove all trace of the 310-pound version of Martin Bakole we saw that night and then tell the world, “This is the heavyweight they all feared. Not that one you saw against Parker.”
That is not to say Bakole has to prove anything to anyone, mind you. In fact, just a month on, that loss against Parker has already been softened by its asterisk and everybody now accepts that few in Bakole’s position would have turned down the opportunity despite the very real chance of defeat. It was not a humiliating defeat anyway, despite its swiftness, nor a surprising one, especially given Bakole only arrived in Riyadh on the morning of the fight. He was doing everyone a favour, that’s all, and for doing so most felt he should be thanked, not condemned; respected, not written off.
Then again, much of what made Martin Bakole such a feared heavyweight pre-Parker was the element of mystery, something liable to evaporate the second a fighter is put to the sword. It is at that point the air of invincibility goes and other fighters – potential opponents – take confidence from the sight of seeing the bogeyman slayed. They have, after all, now seen that it can be done. They know what it looks like.
“He had minimal training before that [Parker] fight and he still landed some big shots on Joe and hurt him twice,” says Billy Nelson, Bakole’s coach. “It was a bit of a desperation punch from Parker in the end. Let me tell you something: Joseph Parker would never beat Martin Bakole with a full camp. Joe knows it, too. He’s a different animal with a full camp in him.
“I knew he could give him problems for the first few rounds but he got hit with a very unusual punch – by the letter of the law, an illegal punch to the top of the head. But we have no complaints about it. We did what we did. Martin was very, very well rewarded. He has made his family comfortable for life and he has a guarantee for his next fight and further fights. It was win-win for us.”
Until fighting Parker, an element of mystery had followed and fuelled Martin Bakole. He was unbeaten in 10 fights since losing against Michael Hunter in 2018 and had shown vast improvements in that time, developing a knack for upsetting unbeaten heavyweights with prettier records and prettier styles. This made him a threat to all prospects in the heavyweight division, as well as a threat to the men holding titles, all of whom know which contenders to fight and which ones to avoid.
Perhaps now, because of that Parker loss, Bakole will find he benefits from his reputation taking a slight hit. Perhaps now, rather than avoided by them, he will discover that other heavyweights are a bit more receptive to sharing a ring with him, each of them spurred on by the image of him hitting the deck following a Parker right hand.
If so, the taking of that Parker fight, and indeed the losing of that Parker fight, could end up being a masterstroke on Bakole’s part. It could be the key to unlocking previously closed doors and it could result in other heavyweights not only fighting Bakole but doing so with a belief that they can replicate the success of Parker and beat Bakole the same way.
Whether on that count they are proved right or wrong is largely immaterial, for the belief alone will be enough to have Bakole licking his lips. If nothing else, it offers the 33-year-old Congolese the chance to dupe opponents into thinking they are getting one thing – the version of Bakole who fought Parker – only to then shock them on the night with something else entirely.
“No, it won’t help,” Nelson says, not buying this theory. “The reason being, when he does a good number on [Efe] Ajagba in May, we will be back where we were before. Everybody knows to avoid Martin Bakole and everybody knows that wasn’t really him in February. When he does a number on Ajagba, he’ll move back up to number three with the IBF – taking Ajagba’s place – and I hope they’ll call a final eliminator between Martin and [Derek] Chisora. I think that’s what’s going to happen. The IBF were very understanding – they realised we helped that show out [in February] and theoretically it cost Martin a final eliminator. To be fair to him, they’ll probably call an eliminator between Martin and Chisora, which, to me, is a complete mismatch.”
With plenty still to gain, one can see why Bakole, 21-2 (16), would be eager to get back in the ring and remind us of the difference between the real him and the one bursting out of tight jeans. You are, after all, only as good as your last fight, they say, and Bakole, for all his recent good work, is currently hurt by the image of him getting cut down in two rounds by a fellow heavyweight contender he would, at his best, back himself to beat.
To remove that image, at least from the minds of those who saw it, is the first step towards some sort of redemption and restoration. Yet there is a danger, too, that Bakole, in the rush of it all (first to take the Parker fight and then make amends and move on from it), could get his timing wrong once more. Meaning, it’s all well and good having preparation time for his next one, but what about the short time between fights? In this instance, there will be just 10 weeks between Bakole getting wobbled, dropped and stopped by Parker and him fighting Efe Ajagba, another solid heavyweight, over 12 rounds. That, by today’s standards, is not a lot of time between fights, and one should never underestimate the impact of a stoppage loss on a fighter, nor the importance of giving the healing process time.
“Not at all,” says Nelson when asked about this. “He basically started camp 10 days after the Parker fight.
“He was unscathed because I stopped the fight. I indicated to Steve [Gray, referee] that that was the fight finished. He looked at me and I said, ‘No more.’ You can’t come off the couch and fight someone like Joe Parker when you’ve been hit with a shot like that. It affected his equilibrium and you can’t expect to come back stronger when that happens. There’s only one way it goes after that. He would have got hurt potentially.
“Initially he thought I stopped it too early but then he realised I hadn’t. Many professionals came in and said it was the right thing to do. It’s only his pride that’s hurt.”
Better to be rescued early in a fight like that than left to wither and suffer late. At least now Bakole will feel relatively fresh during training camp, with the five minutes he spent in Parker’s company considered a bad date rather than something damaging and irreparable. Maybe, on reflection, that was always the plan: get him out at the first sign of trouble; save him for another day. Maybe, in that sense, they got the timing spot on and we are in fact now working to Bakole’s schedule and not the other way round.
At any rate, only once Bakole fights Ajagba will we get a sense as to whether it was all worth it. We will know at that stage whether sacrificing a chunk of the mystery and danger surrounding Martin Bakole was worth the money he got paid by Riyadh Season and we will know, moreover, if what Joseph Parker subsequently did to him in the ring has affected how others, like Efe Ajagba, approach what was once viewed as a daunting task many were keen to avoid. The bogeyman is back, yes, but this time he is unmasked.
“He’s going to be a lot lighter and he’s going to be a hell of a lot fitter,” says Nelson. “After the Ajagba fight we’ll then scream from the rooftops for a rematch with Parker, if and when he wins a world title, or even if he doesn’t. With a full camp, there’s no chance Joe takes that fight.”
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