SORRY for sounding like a broken record but someone should strongly advise Joe Joyce to retire from the ring.
Nearly six years ago giant Zhilei Zhang fractured Joyce’s eye socket and gave him a sickening beating before stopping him in six rounds.
Having seen Joe soak up terrible punishment I wrote in this column: “I felt uneasy watching Joyce take a battering and found myself wondering if, at 37, it would be wise to continue his ring career.”
Unfortunately Joyce took a complete opposite view and insisted on invoking the return fight clause in his contract – and three months later Zhang brutally knocked him out in three rounds.
Last Saturday in Birmingham, Joyce, 39 in September – who was a top ten contender not long ago – was supposed to seek redemption on the long road back towards a world heavyweight title fight.
But it was obvious from Joyce’s lumbering uninspired performance that he has nowhere near recovered from the awful beatings Zhang inflicted on him – and it’s possible he never will.
Kash Ali, not ranked among the world’s top 100 heavyweights, was his carefully selected opponent.
Joe is known as the Juggernaut – a very large vehicle that carries heavy goods over long distances – and he certainly had a load on board. He came in at 20st 6lbs the heaviest he has ever been and proceeded to plod extremely slowly through round after embarrassing round.
Sadly this Juggernaut never got out of first gear and he looked a shadow of the man who, pre-Zhang, had knocked out Joseph Parker and stopped Carlos Takam and Daniel Dubois.
Joyce was expected to dispose of Ali fairly quickly yet he looked tired, lacking conviction and a man who had lost confidence in his ability.
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It was clear from the opening bell Ali’s main purpose was to survive and he managed to do it until he got caught flush with a right hand and was counted out with just seven seconds left of the tenth and final round.
I suppose better very late than never.
The full numbers...
Fights: 18
Wins: 16
Defeats: 2
KO’s: 15
But when Ali did occasionally throw a right hook he found it easy to find Joyce’s chin like everyone else who has fought him.
Ali didn’t have the power to inflict any serious outward damage but being punched regularly in the head by a 17st fighter shouldn’t be lightly dismissed.
No doubt after this unsatisfactory KO victory against Ali, Joyce’s management team will be trying to persuade the media and his fans that Joe is still a serious threat to Tyson Fury, Antony Joshua and Oleksandr Usyk.
Joyce has always fought the same way – amateur and pro – going forward in a straight line without moving his head which means he’s never been difficult to hit.
He’s an intelligent man with an arts degree yet only last week he was saying – like George Foreman – he wants to continue fighting into his 40s.
Not the most sensible idea to say the least.
I’m not alone in fearing the Juggernaut is hurtling downhill fast. Among the past and present champions I spoke to at the British Boxing Board of Control’s awards lunch on Sunday there was complete agreement that it’s time for Joe to quit.
They all feel he has taken too many punches for too long – but they didn’t wish to be quoted telling a fellow fighter what to do with his life.
