Bakole says Joshua is scared of him

Congolese heavyweight Martin Bakole has declared he would knock out Anthony Joshua if they meet in the ring in Nigeria, boasting he’ll do this in front of his own crowd

Joshua is being lined up for a comeback fight in Nigeria early next year following his loss to Daniel Dubois in a world heavyweight title bout at Wembley Stadium in September last year.

Bakole, a former sparring partner of Joshua, has volunteered to face the British-Nigerian boxer in what he described as ‘the Rumble in the Jungle II.’

“I’d take the fight with Anthony Joshua in a heartbeat. We are both African fighters, and now we’re seeing boxing come back to Africa. Anthony Joshua doesn’t want to fight me. He knows what happened in sparring. If we get in the ring, I’m going to knock him out, without doubt,” Bakole told Sky Sports.

“I’ll even knock him out in Nigeria, in front of his own crowd. This is the fight to make. And we need to make it in Africa. It’ll be the Rumble in the Jungle II.”

Promoter Dr Ezekiel Adamu, who recently staged the successful Chaos in the Ring event in Lagos in association with Amir Khan, confirmed that Bakole is among several options being considered for Joshua’s return.

“He is an option. There are a lot of options being thrown at us for this particular fight, but – yes – Martin Bakole is here. We have a lot of options that we’ll be looking at, and we believe that we’ll come up with something really exciting that will excite the whole world and obviously bring proper excitement to Africa as well, especially Nigeria,” Adamu told Sky Sports News.

Adamu disclosed that Nigeria, with its population of about 250 million people and status as Africa’s economic capital, is ideally positioned to host the fight.

Joshua’s team had previously considered Ghana as a potential location for his comeback bout, but Nigeria appears to be gaining traction as the preferred destination.