Joe Joyce admits his chance to become heavyweight world champion could disappear for good if he fails to secure his revenge against Zheili Zhang on Saturday.
The Chinese heavyweight came to London to stun Joyce in April, stopping the Putney fighter in the sixth round. The victory robbed Joyce of his proud undefeated record and his mandatory shot for the WBO title which remains in the possession of Oleksandr Usyk.
It derailed Joyce’s world title plan having been on collision course with the undefeated Ukrainian and for the first time in his career, left him looking vulnerable after years of withstanding destructive punishment.
Joyce went into the fight having built a reputation for having the toughest chin in heavyweight boxing, taking the best his opponents have had to throw with a smile before inflicting his own retribution.
But that night against Zhang, he was beaten and broken down by heavy lefts as the savage southpaw found his target with ease, leaving Joyce with a gruesome swollen eye. Referee Howard Foster thankfully stepped in before any more damage was done.
The 2016 Olympian struggled with the southpaw style, with one prominent pundit suggesting it was a performance of a boxer fighting such an opponent for the first time in their life.
‘I haven’t fought that many southpaws, I think I can count on one hand the amount I have fought as an amateur and a pro,’ Joyce told Metro.co.uk via Online Bookmakers.
‘But I needed to go straight back into this, mentally and physically. The big thing leading into this has been another camp working with the southpaw style. It is a different game fighting a southpaw, a different distance completely. Zhang is obviously a talented fighter and it was a tough test. I had to iron out a few things in camp with my training but I have come out of it in a much better place and I am ready to do a job.’
Zhang simply could not miss with that ramrod left jab in April, inflicting the same sort of punishment Joyce himself administered on Daniel Dubois in November 2020. With the fight doctor twice stepping up onto the ropes to inspect the damage leading up to the stoppage, Joyce says he was desperate to continue.
‘There were moments where I was in the fight. It was stopped with my eye swelling up. It felt like it got stopped too early but it was out of my control because the eye had ballooned up. But it was probably a blessing in disguise getting to live to fight another day in the rematch.’
Questions over Joyce’s preparation for the first fight were raised after he was so comprehensively beaten at the Copper Box Arena. While he suggests there have been some changes behind the scenes, he holds himself most responsible for the plan falling apart on the night.
‘There have been some subtle changes,’ he said. ‘I been having a bit more of an input in things but it has been the same dedication and focus. I know I was maybe guilty of taking my eye of the ball a bit and overlooking Zhang.
‘We have been trying to build the blueprint to beat him but he also has the blueprint to beat me. It is about me raising my game a lot more and I think I have done that in sparring.’
Like his British rivals Anthony Joshua and Dillian Whyte did after their shock defeats to Andy Ruiz Jr and Alexander Povetkin, Joyce opted to go straight into his rematch in search of revenge despite being urged by some quarters not to.
‘What am I going to do?’ he asked. ‘I have worked hard to get myself here and my team have worked hard to put me here. It is a long road back, not taking the rematch, anything can happen. So I need to get back to the place where I left off. I gave Zhang a big opportunity and now I need to snatch it back.’
That opportunity is a shot at world title gold. Joyce was named the WBO’s mandatory challenger in 2022. Daniel Dubois, the WBA’s mandatory challenger, was placed at the front of the queue for title shots this summer, trying and failing against Usyk in August. Filip Hrgovic is next in line with the IBF.
With so much uncertainty engulfing the heavyweight division, Joyce must ensure he is in the right place when his chance eventually comes. Another defeat would be devastating to those chances.
‘It is all on the line. I am thee underdog this time,’ he said. ‘I’m the one with something to prove and I need to get back to winning ways.
‘I just need to get back in the mix and in time for when the title shots get called because you never know when that call is going to come.’
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