Joe Joyce is still in the contender phase of his career but also of an age where he can’t afford to squander any of his prime.
Not that it’s in his DNA.
The 2016 Olympic Silver medalist and current top-rated heavyweight refuses to coast to his first title shot. London’s Joyce has earned a reputation for taking on any tough challenge thrown his way, further proven with this weekend’s showdown versus China’s ‘Big Bang’ Zhang Zhilei (24-1-1, 19KOs). The battle of 6’6” heavyweights headlines an ESPN+/BT Sport telecast this Saturday from Copper Box Arena in Hackney Wick, England.
“When you got a big challenge like Big Bang over there, it’s what gets you out of bed in the morning,” Joyce insisted during Thursday’s final pre-fight press conference. “All the others seem to be running scared or doing their own little thing.”
The challenge comes on the heels of Joyce’s eleventh-round knockout of former WBO titlist Joseph Parker last September 24 in Manchester. That win was claimed 14 months after a sixth-round stoppage of former title challenger Carlos Takam, which was his follow-up to a tenth-round knockout of Daniel Dubois—now a secondary WBA titleholder—in their November 2020 battle of unbeaten English heavyweights.
Few heavyweights in recent memory have endured such a brutal road to a title shot, which Joyce (15-0, 14KOs) still awaits.
So what makes him so special?
“I guess it’s because I’m ‘The Juggernaut,’” Joyce quipped. “I’m a tough man. I started rugby a long time ago. I’ve learned from a lot of sports. And I’ve finally found my sport in boxing. It’s a whole package. It’s all the ingredients that go into making a great champion. That’s what I want to be. And I’m just right close. I have the WBO interim. I don’t know how close I am to the world title.”
The secondary belt held by Joyce makes him one of three mandatory challengers in line for unified WBA/IBF/WBO titlist Oleksandr Usyk (20-0, 13KOs). Strangely, Dubois (19-1, 18KOs) managed to jump the line and is next up for the unbeaten Ukrainian southpaw. After that, the IBF and its number-one contender, Croatia’s Filip Hrgovic (15-0, 12KOs) believe they are next in the rotation, with Joyce bringing up the rear.
An alternative plan could have Joyce face lineal/WBC heavyweight king Tyson Fury (33-0-1, 24KOs) sometime this summer. Such a pairing has been teased in the buildup to this event—although claiming to want to fight Joyce and actually getting in the ring with him aren’t always one and the same.
“I want the [championship] fight to happen,” noted Joyce. “I get how things work with the governing bodies. And I can only just fight who is put in front of me. So, why not fight a good fight and get everyone entertained and have a great fight against Zhilei Zhang.”
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox