Who is Bilel Jkitou?
Facts you need to know about Sam Eggington’s next opponent
‘Savage’ Sam Eggington (30-7, 18KOs) defends his WBC Silver middleweight title for the first time to Frenchman Bilel Jkitou (15-0, 6KOs) on September 10 in Coventry.
As it’s his first fight in the UK, BBN decided to find out some little-known facts about the visiting fighter right here:
Early Life
Bilel Jkitou was born on August 22, 1992, in Nanterre, France, which is located in the western suburbs of Paris.
Ballers
Bilel was once a striker for Red Star FC, which is the oldest club in Paris, having formed 124 years ago in 1897, and the third oldest team in France.
Rich in history, Red Star was actually founded by French footballing legend, Jules Rimet, who went on to become president of FIFA and honoured with the world cup trophy being named after him.
Bilel first joined semi-professional club ACBB of Boulogne-Billancourt in 2008, then moved onto the Red Star club of Saint-Ouen and was a successful player for them, once scoring 15 goals in a single season.
He has played alongside some big French footballing stars including former Spurs and Marseille winger Georges-Kévin Nkoudou.
He’s also good friends with fellow footballer and big boxing fan Karim Benzema.
Amateur Career
As a youngster, Bilel won his first amateur fight at the age of 16 in 2008. However, his brother, Rachid, wanted him to return back to football instead.
He was soon boxing again in 2013, and won an amateur tournament by defeating fellow countryman Adji Sangare in the final. In April 2014, he took part in his final amateur tournament organised by the Ile-de-France boxing committee.
Pro Career
In 2015, Bilel turned professional, but didn't have the required experience to obtain a French boxing licence at first, so being bi-national he gained a professional licence from Morocco first.
He won his debut fight against a 1-0 winning fighter, Sangona Esperantos (now 3-0, 2KOs), via first-round knockout.
Champion
In just his ninth pro fight, in January 2018, he travelled to Western Sahara to defeat Rasheed Abolaji by retiring him after round six of a scheduled 12 to claim his first title – the African Boxing Union (ABU) middleweight belt.
In his next fight, just three months later, he came back to France to win his second belt – the WBC Mediterranean middleweight strap – this time with a unanimous decision win over Italian title contender Christian Segura (then 11-2).
He then collected another green and gold belt in June 2019 when he widely outpointed Estonian Pavel Semjonov (then 24-11-2) to land the WBC Francophone super-welterweight title.
He reclaimed his WBC Mediterranean middleweight in 2020 to become a two-time champion, after vacating it in 2019, by blasting two-time Italian champion Felice Moncelli (then 21-5-1) in the opening round.
Stats
Bouts: 15
Rounds: 82
Won: 15
KOs: 6
Losses: 0
Draws: 0
KO Ratio: 40%
Rankings
BoxRec: #3 (France)
BoxRec: #82 (World)
WBC: #34
What he is saying about his next fight with Sam Eggington:
“It was a real pleasure for me to play and grow at Red Star, a club so prestigious in France for its level and its history. I scored about 15 goals in one season at Red Star. When I beat Eggington and take his title and while I’m still in the city before I go home I’d be happy to help out Coventry City against Middlesbrough.
“Karim [Benzema] wanted to come to see the fight but with the Covid and the fact that he plays often complicates matters. Karim and I met on social networks he is passionate about boxing, he liked what I did and he wrote to me and since then our friendship is very healthy, we give advice to each other, we encourage each other. I also had to go see him in Madrid but the Covid has complicated all these trips, but it will be done very soon. Regarding the fight against Sam he encouraged me to win,"
“I played with Nkoudou who played at Marseille and for Spurs in England, who now plays at Beşiktaş. Yacine Bammou who played in Nantes and with the national team of Morocco. I played with Abdoulaye Diaby who played in Lille, Bruges, Beşiktaş. Mario Lemina, he is also a friend, we come from the same neighbourhood.”
Jkitou says he has transferred all the qualities of a striker such as accuracy, speed, strength and confidence to being a boxer and will use them to defeat against Eggington. He finished, "Yes exactly I am a striker in football but also in boxing and you will see that on September 10 in Coventry.”
Watch silky smooth skilful Jkitou in a street match:
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