Joe Joyce ‘met his bogeyman’ in 2023 and now promoter Frank Warren has revealed the Brit’s next steps.
Joyce picked up the moniker ‘The Juggernaut’ because he had made a name for himself as an unstoppable force in the boxing ring. He knocked out top contenders like Daniel Dubois, Carlos Takam and Joseph Parker before coming up against Zhilei Zhang back in April.
The towering Chinese heavyweight proved to be too much for even Joyce’s granite chin and inflicted such serious damage to his eye that the fight was stopped following an inspection by the ringside doctor in the sixth round.
That leaves the 38-year-old with a record of 17 fights, 15 wins, 14 by knockout and two stoppage loses.
Speaking to Boxing Social, Warren confirmed he will be back in the ring before long.
“He’ll be fighting next year. I think we’ll announce his date early next week. He wants to get back in action, back in the swing.”
Warren then assessed Joyce’s performance against Zhang and said the hope is that he will be challenging for world honours again soon.
“He met his bogeyman in Zhang. He was doing extremely well in the fight. A lot of people were saying he’d probably beat a lot of the heavyweights out there but that happens sometimes that you meet the guy who has your number and he did in that fight.”
“Now he’s back to the drawing board and will do what he can in 2024 to get himself back up there into contention. If he does that we will makes sure the opportunity will be there to challenge for a title.”