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Olympic silver medal winner Joe Joyce is very confident in his ability to score a knockout victory over countryman Anthony Joshua.
Joshua, a former two-time heavyweight champion, was in action last Saturday night in London at the O2 Arena.
The British star snapped a two-fight losing streak by winning a twelve round unanimous decision over Jermaine Franklin.
On April 15, Joyce will defend the WBO’s interim title against Chinese giant Zhang Zhilei.
After watching Joshua’s recent performance, Joyce believes that he would stop both Joshua and Franklin.
“I’d knock both of them out with their performance the other night. I’d definitely force a stoppage on Franklin and Joshua’s ripe for the picking,” Joyce told Sky Sports.
“Not great but [Joshua] got the job done. He went 12 rounds, I thought he would come with some more firepower and aim to push a stoppage but he wasn’t really putting shots together. He was [using] single shots and boxed kind of like he did in the [Andy] Ruiz second fight. So it was a little bit disappointing.
“He seems to have gone, in my opinion, a bit backwards. Hasn’t progressed. I think he lacked the combinations but I think Franklin was a tough guy.”
Joyce does not expect Joshua to face him – at least not in the near future.
He expects Joshua to move forward with a rematch against Dillian Whyte. Back in 2015, Joshua stopped Whyte in the seventh round.
“I’m a threat and he would prefer that [Whyte fight] until he’s got his mojo back,” Joyce said.
“I’d like to see him against Dillian Whyte, because I think Dillian Whyte’s in the same situation. He didn’t really look too great in the last fight,” he acknowledged. So it would be good to see who the better man is and obviously they’ve got past bad blood. I think the fans would get behind that fight. It would be a good fight.”