Joe Joyce has had a rough 18 months, suffering his first, second and third career defeats after seeming well positioned for a world title shot. With many questioning whether he should continue in the sport, old foe Zhieli Zhang has offered the 38-year-old some words of wisdom.
Fabled for his formidable chin, ‘The Juggernaut’ found himself hot on the tail of the heavyweight world champions last year, with a well-aged win over Joseph Parker standing out as his greatest performance to date.
That victory saw Joyce become the WBO mandatory challenger for Oleksandr Usyk’s belt but the Briton made the decision to defend this position and his interim title, rather than wait for the Ukrainian.
Joyce selected Zhang as his opponent and early into their April affair it was clear to see that he had made a grave mistake. Zhang pummelled the Briton from pillar to post and landed the straight left-hand at will before the contest was stopped in the sixth-round.
A brave Joyce activated his rematch-clause immediately but was met with the same fate in their second battle, as Zhang got the job done quicker and more impressively – a third-round knockout of the year contender.
Bereft of confidence, Joyce laboured to a questionable final-round knockout victory against Kash Ali in March but came up short against ageing domestic rival Derek Chisora last weekend, in what many believed to signal the end of Joyce’s career – his chin finally cracked and his dreams ultimately crushed.
Still, Joyce has maintained that he will continue to fight and in an interview with Boxing Social, Zhang informed his former dance partner that he has become to easy to predict and that if he continues to box, he needs to switch up his front-footed style.
“First of all, I don’t think that he has changed that much from day one. He still has that style, so I cannot really say what is happening with his training or strategic management inside of the ring. I am an outsider, so I don’t know what is happening in his camp but honestly, I don’t think that he has changed that much or made much of an adjustment since he fought me.
“If he wants to continue, which I believe he would, I think that he needs to switch up his training and try different things in training. Change it up, because right now everybody knows what he can do and what he cannot do. People are studying him, they are analysing him, so for him to proceed to the next level he needs to really focus on changing things up.”
As Joyce’s manager has stated since the damning defeat, there will always be fights for Joe Joyce, but it feels as if there is no fight left within the fan-favourite brawler, as much as he attempts to convince the public otherwise.
Moses Itauma, Fabio Wardley and Frazer Clarke all remain as potential opponents for the Rio 2016 silver medallist, but whether Joyce remains interested in fighting at the British level remains to be seen.
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