After his criticism of Anthony Joshua over recent months has been well documented, Carl Froch has bestowed some praise towards another British heavyweight this week.
Joe Joyce’s rematch against Zhilei Zhang is fast approaching, with victory imperative for ‘The Juggernaut’ if he is to have any chance of becoming world heavyweight champion.
And despite a lacklustre performance in his first bout with Zhang back in April, Froch spoke highly of Joyce’s “effective” style, saying he “destroys souls.”
In a recent feature on Talksport Boxing, ‘The Cobra’ said:
“He [Joyce] destroys their souls in that ring. His work rate doesn’t stop, the pace doesn’t stop.”
“He just plods forward, he doesn’t do anything special and he doesn’t look even like he punches hard. He’s not fast, dynamic and he doesn’t have good head movement. It’s just basic and bog standard. But it’s really effective.”
“Apart from Zhang, the only other guy I’ve seen do a job in him was Oleksandr Usyk in the World Series of Boxing, a step between amateur and professional.”
Joyce and Zhang will lock horns on September 23 at Wembley Arena, roughly six months on from when ‘Big Bang’ pulled off a shock upset win to hadn’t the Brit the first defeat of his professional career
The WBO interim belt, which the Chinese southpaw pried from former Olympic silver medalist Joyce first time around, will be on the line once more, meaning the victor could potentially get a shot at unified world champion Usyk at some point in 2024.
For Joyce, all that matters now is the rematch. He has confirmed that he’ll be coming in heavier after baffling fans and pundits by giving away some weight the first time around.