By Charles Brun: Ricky Hatton believes Joe Joyce will be a potential nightmare for heavyweight champions Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury when or if he gets the opportunity to fight either of them.
The huge 6’6″ Joyce (12-0, 11 KOs) is fighting tonight against former world title challenger Carlos Takam (39-5-1, 28 KOs) in a 12 round main event bout in a WBO title eliminator at the Wembley Arena in London, UK.
A victory for the 2016 Olympic silver medalist Joyce will put him in the pole position to fight for a world title next year or 2023.
Joyce = real threat to Joshua & Fury
Due to his advancing age, Joyce, 35, is moving quickly with his career. Since turning professional four years ago, he has beaten notable heavyweights Daniel Dubois, Bryan Jennings, Alexander Ustinov, and Bermane Stiverne since turning professional four years ago in 2017.
Although Joyce lacks hand speed, his jab is the equivalent of a power punch with the way he delivers it, and he’s capable of using that weapon all night without gassing.
In Joyce’s last fight, he wore down the favorite Dubois with his jab, swelling up his left eye and forcing him to quit on a knee in the 10th round last November.
Joyce took many heavy shots from the powerful Dubois, but he kept throwing his jab and wore him down like water, wearing down a stone over time.
“He [Joe Joyce] will give Joshua and Tyson a load of problems, and because of his long amateur spell, that is maybe why he has to get a move on a little bit,” said Ricky Hatton to the Metro.
“He’s not playing games. I think he surprised a lot of people with what he did against Dubois,” said Hatton about Joe Joyce.
It’s a bit early to assume that IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Joshua (24-1, 22 KOs) and WBC champion Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs) will still hold world titles by the time Joyce gets his mandated title shot.
Fury, 32, has to beat former WBC champion Deontay Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KOs) in their trilogy match on October 9th, and it’s not a given that he’ll win that fight. The Gypsy King has been out of the ring for close to two years, and he’s lost a lot of muscle due to atrophy.
Joe too much for the depleted Fury
It’s challenging to regain what you had when you’re out of the ring for that length of time in your 30s. If you slack off and sit on the couch for two years in any professional sport, you NEVER regain what you had.
Fury has wasted his career potential by sitting around, celebrating his victories over Wilder in 2020 and Wladimir Klitschko in 2015. You hate to say it but Fury is a slacker 100%.
Tyson has been his own worst enemy by not going back to work after his big wins. I guess you can say that Fury isn’t a frontrunner, and he’s not comfortable with being on the top.
He seems to prefer to have no expectations/pressure being put on him. Whatever the case, the Fury that we saw last time against Wilder likely is gone forever.
If Fury is 70% of what he was against Deontay in February 2020, he’ll be lucky. Joe Joyce beats Fury if he’s fighting at 70% capacity, and who knows?
Assuming Fury is the last man standing when Joyce faces him in late 2022 or early 2023, he might be only 50% of what he was when he beat Deontay.
It’s fair to say that Joyce will slice through what’s left of Fury like a hot knife through butter.
“He’s a nightmare for anyone with that style and that left jab of his,” said Hatton about Joyce. The amount of damage he does when he throws them is huge. Also, his punch resistance is freakish; the shots seem to just bounce off him,” said Hatton in raving about Joe Joyce.