By Charles Brun: WBO heavyweight mandatory Joe ‘Juggernaut’ Joyce says he already knows how he plans on defeating IBF/WBA/WBO champion Anthony Joshua in 2022 when he battles him for his mandated title shot.
Joyce took care of business last week, stopping the capable former world title challenger Carlos Takam in the sixth round to hold onto his WBO mandatory spot.
The 6’7″ Joyce could spoil the party for Joshua next year if he sends him crashing down to his second-career defeat. Given Joyce’s steel chin, heavy George Foreman-esque hands, and nonstop punching fighting style, he may prove to be kryptonite to Joshua.
Joyce (13-0, 12 KOs) will walk through Joshua’s heavy shots to take him into the deep waters and down the big lug in the later rounds.
Will Joshua still be around to face Joyce in 2022?
At this stage of the game, it’s still too early to know if Joyce will be facing Joshua, Tyson Fury, Oleksandr Usyk, or Deontay Wilder next year for his mandated title shot for the WBO belt.
Those guys still have big fights ahead of them, and we still don’t know who the last man standing will be. For all we know, it might be Usyk who holds all the belts by 2022 or possibly the power-punching Deontay.
Now that would be a shock, particularly for Top Rank, who banking on Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs) to produce the goods and show that they spent their money right by signing him to an expensive contract several years ago.
Thus far, Fury has blown it twice in a row in watching Top Rank’s hoped-for big fights go up in smoke with the Gypsy King losing his arbitration case with Deontay and then allegedly coming down with COVID-19.
“I obviously wouldn’t go in and trade with him for too long because he’s dangerous when he’s swinging those big arms around,” said Joe Joyce to Sky Sports about a fight between him and Anthony Joshua.
“You don’t want to be caught with any of them. I would have to be a lot more tactical,” Joyce continued about his approach to a fight against Joshua.
Joyce is ready to DROWN Joshua in deeper waters
“There’s always two halves of the fight. It’s a long fight, so I could take him into deep waters and drown him,” said Joyce.
You can bet that Joyce would be looking to wear the stamina-plagued Joshua in the same way he did the young 23-year-old upstart Daniel Dubois last November, resulting in him taking a knee to escape the punishment he was enduring.
Unlike Joshua, Dubois has never shown stamina problems during his career, yet he still fell apart from the telephone pole-like jab that Joyce hit him with all night. That jab from the equally tall Joyce was incessant and unavoidable.
By the tenth round, Dubois’ left eye was a complete mess, looking as it was about to close entirely. At that point, Dubois opted to take the most logical step by quitting on a knee rather than risk permanent injury to his eye.
It’s going to be interesting to see whether Joshua’s terrible stamina will rear its ugly head against Joyce in the later rounds. Yeah, we’ve heard Eddie Hearn drone on about how Joshua has supposedly fixed his conditioning issues, but we haven’t seen him display that yet.
Joshua’s opposition has been so dreadfully poor lately that there hasn’t been anyone with the kind of talent to show whether he’s made improvements in his stamina.
For all we know, Joshua’s stamina has gotten WORSE as he’s hit his 30s. That flaw for Joshua has been disguised because he was matched against lesser opposition like Kubrat Pulev and Andy Ruiz Jr.
Juggernaut primed for RISKY exchanges with AJ
“I tend to take a lot of shots, and if he’s going to land big shots, there will be some risky exchanges on both sides, and I’m sure I could land some heavy ones on him too,” said Joyce about him talking about having potentially risky exchanges with Joshua.
“There will be some risky exchanges on both sides, and I’m sure I could land some heavy ones on him too,” said Joyce about his future battle against Joshua.