After three straight defeats across 2022 and 2023, it is not unfair to say that Tony Yoka’s career was on life support.

The man who claimed gold at Rio 2016 had lost on points to Martin Bakole, Carlos Takam and, most damaging of all, Ryad Merhy. "At that point," he remembers in conversation with The Ring.

"I knew I had to stop completely, or change everything."

Yoka, now 34, chose the latter but his route back towards the top of the heavyweight division would not be ordinary for the Parisian known as "The Artist."

After losing to Merhy at Roland Garros in December 2023, he would return to the ring eight months later at London’s Tolworth Recreation Centre over eight rounds. He beat Amine Boucetta in the fourth.

Then, just two months later, came his six-round run-out at Mecca Bingo Hall in Wiltshire's former farming town of Swindon. Given the card featured fighters mainly the local area, the 6-foot-7 Frenchman stood out like a sore thumb. He beat Nottingham journeyman Lamah Griggs (3-13-1) inside five minutes.

"At that time I just needed to have the feeling of loving this sport again," he explains. "I needed to go back to basics, back to where people are just fighting. No cameras, people are still smoking inside, it felt like going back to the good old days and I needed that.

"I had been fighting in places like that many years before I was Olympic champion so it wasn’t new to me. It’s not something I don’t know. I had 120 fights as an amateur all around the world so it felt like going back to my roots.

"After the first one, then the one in Swindon I was like, 'OK, I’m back at it, I’m good now.' Then I knew I could go back up. Sometimes you have to take a few steps back to continue."

After those two victories in obscure English venues, Yoka returned to Paris for a 10-rounder against undefeated Arslan Yallyev in May last year and won on points. His instincts were correct — Yoka was back in business. 

A quick blow-out of Patrick Korte in Lagos, Nigeria was to follow before he was scheduled to face Lawrence Okolie, who was the WBC's No. 1 contender at the time.

Victory over the Englishman in the French capital on April 25 would have probably left him just one win away from a shot at the world heavyweight title but he never got that chance. Instead, deep into fight week, Yoka was told that there would be no fight as Okolie had failed a VADA test.

"Camp had been perfect and me, my team, everybody was very confident about that fight," he says. "Then, three days before at 7am in the morning, my manager called me, said Okolie had failed a drugs test and the fight was off.

"It was supposed to be a big night for me. Also, I don't get a paycheck every month, I only get paid when I fight. Camp had cost me a lot of money then the fight got canceled and I got nothing.

"The days after I heard were crazy, I won't lie. I couldn't get out of bed for like 48 hours. It wasn't even about the money but the position it would have got me. After rebuilding in those small fights, I felt like I was that close to the top again and they took it from me."

The irony was that Yoka himself has fallen foul of anti-doping measures himself as, in 2018, he was handed a one-year ban by the French anti-doping agency for failing to give the required sample three times in one year.

This time, Okolie insisted he was not guilty of any wrongdoing, claiming that the failed test resulted from medical treatment on an elbow injury. Either way, Yoka had no fight and Frank Warren, the show’s promoter, was left “very disappointed."

When asked if he had any sympathy for Okolie, Yoka said: "Pardon my French, but f—k him. Okay? We signed up for VADA for this fight and we know they are coming to test us. I was telling them everything I was taking, even protein shakes. How can you forget to tell them about this treatment? I was tested three times in that camp and made sure they knew about everything."

Although that week exposed Yoka to one of boxing's worst sides, the beauty of this sport is that when one door closes, it is not uncommon for another to open. For him, that meant the offer to face Murat Gassiev for his secondary WBA heavyweight belt. The pair will meet at Moscow's VTB Arena on July 11.

"I had those 48 hours in my room but then I got back to it," he says.

"That Saturday night when I was supposed to be in the ring fighting Okolie, I was in the gym training. It means I'm ready for Gassiev now. I will be even better in this fight because I have the Okolie camp and now this one.

"I'm hungrier than ever. It has been a few years and I have gone a long route but I am back at it, back at my best level and in the best shape of my life. I'm 34 now and I'm ready."