Frank Warren believes Joe Joyce stops Anthony Joshua

By Boxing News - 03/17/2022 - Comments

By Huck Allen: Promoter Frank Warren reveals that he reached out to Anthony Joshua’s handlers to try and set up a fight between him and Joe Joyce.

While Warren is hopeful the Joshua vs. Joyce fight can be made, he has his doubts that it will.  Joshua’s once-promising career has taken two devastating hits, with him losing to Oleksandr Usyk and Andy Ruiz Jr.

At this point, Joshua, 32, cannot afford another loss, which is why a dangerous fighter like Joyce (13-0, 12 KOs) likely won’t be given a chance to face him.

Joshua’s confidence is gone since his loss to Andy Ruiz Jr. in June 2019, and he’s looked gunshy in his three fights since that defeat.

Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn wants him to take an interim fight while he waits for Oleksandr Usyk to return from the war in Ukraine.

Hearn should forget about Joshua fighting Usyk again because the IBF/WBA/WBO champion could’ve tied down for years in Ukraine if the war turned into a Vietnam type of quagmire lasting eight years.

“Absolutely make,” said Frank Warren to Talksport when asked if he’d like to make a fight between Joe Joyce and Anthony Joshua. “I fancy Joe. He’s got a tremendous chin and great stamina.

Image: Frank Warren believes Joe Joyce stops Anthony Joshua

“They talk about what happened to him [Joyce] when they were amateurs. Well, their not amateurs anymore. They’re pros, and Anthony has been beaten twice and exposed, certainly in his last fight [against Oleksandr Usyk], very exposed,” said Warren.

Whatever wins Joshua had during his amateur days over fighters like Joyce and Otto Wallin are meaningless now.

This is an entirely different reality for Joshua in 2022 than the one he had years ago when he was younger and not the war-scarred veteran who has lived through too many horrors in battle after battle.

Joshua looks damaged from the fighting, mentally & physically. The way AJ has looked lately, he’s not going to come back to be the fighter he was.

Unfortunately, it’s not something he can fix by swapping out his trainer. That won’t change anything, ever.

Joshua looks like a shadow of the fighter he’d been from 2013 to 2018.

AJ’s defeat at the hands of Ruiz took something from him mentally, and it’s purely academic that he won’t be able to back to be the fighter he was at the height of his career.

“I fancy Joe can knock him over,” said Warren about Joshua. “We have made initial contact, but I don’t think they’ll go with it,” Warren said about him having contacted Joshua’s team to try and make a fight between AJ and Joyce.

“If they want it, they can have it. I think Joe will knock him out; I really do. If you look at his [Joshua] last few fights, he’s looked a little bit wary. I think Joe can get to him and stop him,” said Warren.

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