It is five months since Zhilei Zhang comprehensively beat Joe Joyce, outboxing and busting up the Londoner who was stopped due to some serious eye damage midway through the sixth round. Zhang shocked many with his performance and snatched away Joyce’s WBO Interim heavyweight title.
The interim WBO belt is once again on the line in this weekend’s rematch and the winner will be hoping to capitalise on the confusion surrounding the proposed undisputed heavyweight title fight between lineal and WBC champion, Tyson Fury, and WBO, IBF, WBA and Ring Magazine champion, Oleksandr Usyk, and land a title shot of their own.
Joyce (15-1, 14 KO’s) has taken the hard road to the top ever since turning professional back in 2017 but the stakes have never been higher than they are this weekend. Joyce knows his dreams of holding a world title hang by a thread. Zhang (25-1-1, 20 KO’s) can cut that thread on Saturday night.
“This is very serious stuff,” Joyce said at today’s press conference. “I’ve trained seriously for this. It’s about time I get my success and move on from this. It’s going to be a great fight. I’m looking forward to getting the victory on Saturday night.”
Joyce enters a fight as an underdog for the first time since his upset defeat of Daniel Dubois in 2020. That night, the fear factor of taking on a dynamite puncher drove Joyce to a superb performance. If the memories of the pain and frustration Zhang inflicted on him still linger, we could well see the best ever version of Joyce. Desire won’t be enough. It may seem like a strange statement but the fact that so much went wrong last time gives Joyce and his trainer, Ismael Salas, an enormous amount of room for improvement. If they can improve on just a couple of things, his chances of getting revenge will increase dramatically.
“It exposed a lot of mistakes that me and the team made in the camp,” Joyce said. “It’s about correcting those. Looking at the next fights – not overlooking Zhang – but we need to get those things right. It exposed them and really made me focus and get more dedicated at what I’m doing. Improving and to come back stronger and grab that title back.
“It’s just small changes. A lot of small changes make a big difference and that’s what we’ve done.”
Much was also made of Joyce’s weight for the first fight. The Olympic silver medallist weighed in at 256lbs. A full 16lbs light than he did for his impressive knockout of Joseph Parker and his lightest for four years. Zhang is a giant himself and as well as struggling mightily with Zhang’s southpaw style, Joyce looked more susceptible to being hurt than he has in the past.
“[The weight] was the sole focus of the post fight comments so it was something that I needed to correct but it was amongst a lot more different things and different aspects of the camp that I needed to build on,” he said. “I’ve made sure that I’ve ticked every box. Crossed the t’s and dotted the i’s. And try to not get my eye blacked.
“I think there was moments in there where I was starting to get to work but the eye clearly was starting to close. I threw more punches but he kept hitting me with the more eye catching, heavier blows. They were very quick. He’s a good fighter. It’s a tough test but it’s something that I’ve really got up for. It’s a big test that I need to crash through. Or jump over.”