[USUAL SUNDAY MORN SPOILERS] What to think of Tony Yoka now?

Cableaddict · June 24, 2018

Well, we always knew that David Allen was tough, if nothing else. (and, well, nothing else.)

Tonight, Tony Yoka basically won every round, and turned Allen's face into something resembling a pomegranate that was dropped down three flights of stairs.

He even got a TKO in the final round, after finally opening a can of whoop-ass,

And yet, I have never been less impressed with the guy. Well, OK, I've only known he existed for about 6 months, but still, his performance tonight troubles / puzzles me.

Yoka won every round, but he got tagged WAAAY too much. Especially in the later rounds, Allen, who is the definiton of "B level", was landing a disturbing amount of clean shots. A few times I actually thought Yoka might go down. It seemd like Allen was getting stronger as the fight wore on, so I'm thinking maybe Yoka was gassing.

But no: In the final round he suddenly came alive and just pummeled Allen into jelly. He looked like Deontay Wider on PCP.

SO WHAT THE HECK WAS HE WAITING FOR?

If he has the ability to do that for the entire fight, why did he absorb all that punishment?

And the other thing is, for nine rounds, while Allen did OK in small spurts, Yoka was just teeing off on his head. I mean, clean shot after clean shot after clean shot... And Allen never went down. OK, again, we know Allen is tough, but this was ridiculous. The only conclusion I can draw is that Yoka, for all his menacing physicality, lacks power.

Hmmm .....

Edited June 24, 2018 by Cableaddict

robprosser · June 26, 2018

Re: [uSUAL SUNDAY MORN SPOLIERS] What to think of Tony Yoka now?

Yoka's style is unchanged from his amateur days. Pop the jab and the occasional right hand and cover up. It's what he did in the Olympic final when he got a gift against Joyce where the judges thought one jab was worth more than 2 or 3 body shots. The positives - he's got a good fast jab, uses his height well, decent stamina. The negatives - very light hitter (he was hitting Allen with flush right hands all fight and didn't hurt him at any point), his defence needs to improve. He was tagged often against Allen and gets hit to the body a lot. He just covers up and while you can get through short amateur contests doing that it won't work over 10 or 12 rounds. As for the contest, from Yoka's perspective it was worryingly competitive and to be honest the stoppage was probably a bit premature. He should be taking care of someone like Dave fairly easily. I think Joe Joyce would have go him out of there in 2 or 3 rounds.