BBN find out a few facts on Sofiane Takoucht – the next challenger to IBF champ Josh Warrington
France’s Sofiane Takoucht (35-3-1, 13 KOs) will head to the First Direct Arena in Leeds on Saturday October 12 to challenge IBF World featherweight champion Josh Warrington (29-0, 6 KOs) in what will be 'Leeds Warrior's' third defence of his world crown.
The 33-year-old challenger has never fought in the UK before so is a relatively unknown figure to Brit fight fans, so BBN set out to provide a few facts about the Frenchman soon to be visiting our shores:
Sofiane 'Baby Face' Takoucht
Born October 14, 1985, Frenchman Sofiane is currently 33-years-old.
Nicknamed ‘Baby Face’, he hails from Charleville-Mézières in northern France, located on the banks of the Meuse River, which is the capital of the Ardennes department in the Grand Est region.
His professional debut was over 12 years ago in December 2006 against Sylvian Chappelle, winning on points over four-rounds at super-featherweight.
He won his first 16 fights until he challenged Guillaume Frenois for the French featherweight title and was widely beaten on points. Frenois most recently lost to Tevin Farmer on points when contending for the IBF World super-featherweight title.
The southpaw bounced back to win the European featherweight title within a year of tasting defeat for the first time. However, he lost it in the first defence of the title 13 months later in 2011.
He then secured the EBU European Union belt in 2012, then captured the IBF International belt in 2017, taking his trophy haul to three titles.
He is the #1 ranked featherweight in France. In the world rankings, he is #5 in the IBF standings, due to holding the IBF International featherweight title for two years between April 2017 to May 2019.
He has won his last eight fights and hasn’t been beaten for five-and-a-half years.
Despite three losses on his ledger, he has never been stopped by anyone.
In 2015, Takoucht left the Zaiim team of the CS Nouzonville Ardennes for the Euroboxe Promotion.
He once hung up his gloves in retirement and didn't fight at all during the year of 2016 until he joined up with trainer Frederic Perez.
He is now trained by Alain Vastine, the father of 2008 Beijing bronze medalist, Alexis, who tragically died in the Villa Castelli helicopter collision during the filming of French TV reality show 'Dropped' for the TF1 network.
STATS
W: 35
L: 3
D:1
KO: 13
KO Ratio: 33%
Bouts: 39
Rounds: 244
Titles: 3