Olympic silver medal winner Joe Joyce felt that he could have continued on Saturday night, when the ringside doctor stopped his fight with Zhilei Zhang in the sixth round at the Copper Box in London.
In what was a bruising fight, Joyce’s right eye was close shut by the sixth round from the heavy left hands of Zhang.
After examining the eye for the second time, the ringside doctor advised the referee to stop the fight in the sixth.
Joyce suffered the first defeat of his career and also lost his mandatory position with the WBO.
He admits have issues dealing with the southpaw style of Zhang, who seemed to land his left hand shots with no issues in each passing round.
“I haven’t fought a southpaw for a long time, so I need to look over the tape. I thought I could have carried on, I was taking his shots fine, but it’s just unfortunate that the eye closed up. But I’ll be back,” Joyce told Talk Sport.
Ironically, one of the biggest wins of Joyce’s career came in 2020, when he stopped Daniel Dubois – as the result of an eye injury where Dubois’ eye was closed shut due to a fractured orbital bone.
“He just kept on getting my eye. I’m fine, I’m completely fine, but now it’s closed up and I can’t see out of it now,” Joyce said.
“It’s an eye for an eye again now, I got my eye done. It’s like what I did, I got a bit of payback from Dubois, I guess. Maybe it’s karma.”
There is an immediate rematch clause, but it’s not clear if Joyce plans to exercise that option. He may take an interim-fight upon returning from the injured eye.