BoxRec

New manager Tony Yoka, the American James Prince has chosen an opponent for his fight back to July 13 at the Palais des Sports in Paris: the Dutchman Tyrone Spong (33 years, 1.88 m, 13 wins, 12 before the limit, 0 defeat), number 75 in the points ranking of BoxRec.

Born in Suriname, five years old in the Netherlands, Spong had a long career in kickboxing, before a leg surgery in 2014 encouraged him to turn to boxing and go pro in March 2015 The following year, this father of four moved to Miami. In his last fight, he grabbed the WBC-Latin heavyweight belt by beating two Ecuadorian Ytalo Perea points in December in Suriname.

Yoka, who is currently serving a three-year suspension for three anti-doping localization failures, is still training at coach Virgil Hunter in Hayward, near San Francisco. On his Twitter account, the Olympic super heavyweight champion released Friday a photo showing him with James Prince and the boxing article announcing their collaboration.

After making a name for himself as a rapper, Prince (54) once managed former US world champions Floyd Mayweather and Andre Ward, and is currently coaching his compatriot Shakur Stevenson, runner-up 56 kg in 2016, winner of his eleven pro fights.

dagilechia wrote: ↑25 May 2019, 18:39 Spong is not really good (despite what one of the boxrec's troll says) so Yoka should win, but i agree with the opinion that this fight will likely get cancelled.

I also doubt that Yoka will ever get to the top 20.

oogiebe wrote: ↑25 May 2019, 10:01 Spong an overblown small HW with a resume thin as a hyman. The question here is how long will it take Yoka to get himself back to form from before his suspension. He lost a lot of valuable development time. A win over Spong is hardly impressive.

joshj909 wrote: ↑26 May 2019, 09:08 Well that was short lived

Lackeos wrote: ↑26 May 2019, 05:25 I like this fight. It is matched somewhat competitively, especially factoring-in Yoka's layoff.

Related: I guess the people that claimed Sponge was a serious prospect have all gone and disappeared now that he's being booked against Yoka. He had some serious followers, and it used to be a battle trying to convince them that he wasn't going to be a champ.