Promoter George Warren of Queensberry Promotions feels confident that heavyweight contender Joe Joyce will still be involved in major fights.
This past Saturday night at the Copper Box in London, Joyce was stopped in the sixth round by Chinese giant Zhilei Zhang.
The right eye of Joyce was swollen shut, from the big left hands of Zhang – which prompted the ringside doctor to advise the referee to stop the contest.
“It will be a big fight again but if it isn’t that fight, Joe will be in big fights, Zhilei will be in big fights,” Warren told talkSPORT Breakfast.
“There’s so much activity at heavyweight and this is what it’s all about. We wanna see fights where you don’t know the outcome and that’s what we got on Saturday.”
As part of the fight agreement, Zhang is now under contract with Queensberry, who are planning to guide him – and Joyce – to big fights.
However, there is the scenario of a rematch. Joyce has an immediate rematch clause, but he may take an interim fight before pursuing a second contest with Zhang.
“Zhilei is under contract with Queensberry for the foreseeable future and he’s got a great group of people we work with for him. If Joe wants that rematch, it’s his right to invoke it, it’s not ours. Our relationship with Zhilei will continue if he doesn’t, he’s got that decision to make,” Warren said.
“He can do it immediately. He could take a fight and we could look to revisit it later in the year. At the moment, we’ve got to see how bad that eye is. We are going to have to assess it, he’s going to have to look at the performance and what went wrong but that decision on the rematch is down to him.”