By Scott Gilfoid: Heavyweight prospect Joe Joyce (1-0, 1 KOs) looked impressive in his pro debut in battering and stopping war horse Ian Lewison (12-4, 8 KOs) in the 8th round of a scheduled 10 round fight at the Indigo at The O2 Arena in London, England.
The 6’6” Joyce hurt the exhausted and flabby looking Lewison with a left to the head in round 8. Joyce then followed up with a series up heavy power shots that led to Lewison’s corner throwing in the towel to have the fight stopped. The official time of the stoppage came at 2:35 of round 8.
The 2016 Olympic super heavyweight Silver medalist Joyce had Lewison hurt in round 4 when he nailed him with a big left to the head. Lewison’s right eye was hurt from the shot, and he looked like he was unable to defend himself properly.
Showing no real urgency to finish the job, Joyce took his time and battered Lewison for the remainder of the 4th round. Lewison was stumbling around under the big shots that Joyce was hammering him with. To Lewison’s credit, he made it out of the 4th, but only because Joyce didn’t try to press the issue. Joyce looked like he wanted to keep Lewison in the fight a little longer, so he didn’t really go after him the way he could have.
The boxing fans at the O2 were really making some noise during the round in anticipation that Joyce would knock Lewison out in that round. It’s a good thing that Joyce didn’t, because it gave him some valuable rounds. Joyce is being fast tracked to the top, and that means he needs to let fights like this go longer than he normally would do. Joyce isn’t going to get the experience that other heavyweights get in fighting 20-30 times before fighting for a world title. Joyce could be getting a title shot by next year if everything goes right.
Lewison was fighting back hard in rounds 5 and 6, trying not to get taken. Lewison was having problems with his trunks sliding down, showing his cheeks to the boxing fans. The referee needed to fix that problem, because it looked bad. Lewison was throwing wild haymakers in hopes of hurting Joyce. Lewison looked really desperate. The shots that did land, weren’t nearly powerful enough to get Joyce’s attention. Lewison looked tired from constantly having Joyce on top of him with his Gennady Golovkin style of nonstop pressure.
Lewison didn’t look like this in his fight with Dillian Whyte, because he wasn’t getting the same kind of working over. Joyce was attacking Lewison with his 2-fisted forward style, and it seemed to unnerve him. Joyce’s heavy hands were weakening Lewison. Each punch from Joyce had so much weight and power behind them. It wasn’t the speedy fast shots that you normally see from some heavyweights. Joyce was landing slower, but very powerful punches that would connect to the head and body of Lewison with a thud.
Joyce slowly and methodically broke Lewison down in round 7, hitting him with some huge punches one after another. Lewison was taking the punishment, but it was doing a lot of damage to him. Joyce was perfectly comfortable at hitting Lewison with heavy shots without pushing the pace faster than he needed to. It worked perfectly for Joyce, as he wore Lewison down until he was just a punching bag. Lewison was no longer capable of throwing anything back at Joyce by this point in the fight.
In round 8, Joyce connected with a big left hand to the head of Lewison that hurt him. Joyce then unloaded with some painful looking shots that led Lewison’s corner to stop the contest.
Joyce, 32, reminded me a lot of a young George Foreman with the way he was landing heavy but slow shots all throughout the fight. The only difference between Joyce and a young Foreman was the absence of an uppercut. Foreman liked to throw uppercuts early in his career. Joyce doesn’t seem to have that punch in his arsenal for some reason. Hopefully that’s something his trainer Ismael Salas can teach him, because he needs that weapon before he faces Anthony Joshua in a year or two.
Joyce did a better job of getting Lewison out of there than Dillian Whyte did last year in his 10th round stoppage. Whyte was nowhere near as good beating Lewison. The fight was a competitive one for Whyte until Lewison wore down in the 8th round. Tonight, Joyce had Lewison looked exhausted and spent by the 3rd round. He was hitting him with massive shots that drained him like a batter.
Most heavyweights don’t fight a guy of Lewison’s caliber until they’ve at least had 20 fights. Joyce took him on in his pro debut, and he fought like a guy that has been a pro for many years. The composure that Joyce showed in the fight was very impressive. Joyce never lost his cool for a second, and he was always thinking. You could see that Joyce was very calculated with what he wanted to do, and he was sticking with the game plan instead of getting excited each time he had Lewison hurt. If this had been Anthony Joshua, he likely would have bum rushed Lewison after hurting him in round 4 to try and get him out of there. Joyce didn’t want to do that. Joyce appeared to want to leave him out there as long as possible.
Joyce’s promoter David Haye is pretty excited at the potential of his fighter. Haye sees Joyce winning a world title very quickly. He’s going to keep matching him against good fighters so that he can get him a world title fight soon. Joyce isn’t young enough at age 32 for him to be brought along slowly like some heavyweights. Joshua was also fast tracked in being put in a title fight back in 2015 after just 2 years as a pro. Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn is the one that made the deal to get him a quick world title fight against Charles Martin for the IBF heavyweight title.
It’ll be interesting to see who Haye matches Joyce up against next for his second pro fight. I’d like to see Joyce take on someone like David Price, Dereck Chisora or Dillian Whyte. I’d favor Joyce over all of them by knockout.
Joyce has world champion written all over him. All he needs is the shot at a title, and he has an excellent chance of winning a belt by next year.