By Jake Tiernan: Cruiserweight Alen Babic rates Joe Joyce as the toughest heavyweight he’s sparred with, above Tyson Fury. It’s not surprising that Babic views Joyce as a tougher spar than Fury because he’s more powerful and has better stamina.
Although the 6’9″, 260+ Fury (33-0-1, 24 KOs) is a little taller and heavier than the 6’6″, 260-lb Joyce, but he doesn’t possess the same power.
Moreover, the 37-year-old Joyce looks younger than the 34-year-old Fury and far more physically fit.
The toughness, power, and engine of the unbeaten Joyce (15-0, 14 KOs) are what impressed Babic from the sparring that he’s done with him.
“I sparred Joe Joyce, we did close to 25 rounds in three days, and I rate him the highest, and I’ve sparred them all,” Babic said to talkSPORT Boxing.
“I rate Joyce the highest because he’s a tough mother***er, relentless, and has a good punch, and I didn’t know that.
“It doesn’t look like he [Joyce] has that powerful a punch, but his hands are very heavy, a heavy-handed guy, and he has an engine like myself, he doesn’t stop, and he is double the size of me with the same engine, it’s crazy,” said Babic about Joyce.
Fury’s grappling/mauling style of fighting that he mainly uses nowadays since he joined with trainer SugarHill Steward could prove ineffective against Joyce because he’s stronger and would get the better of that fighting style.
Fury is too old and flabby to return to the mobile style that he had earlier in his career when he beat Wladimir Klitschko.
Joyce is said to be in the running for a fight against WBC champion Fury in the summer after negotiations for the undisputed heavyweight championship with IBF, WBA & WBO champ Oleksandr Usyk collapsed recently for their hoped-for fight on April 29th.
It’s highly questionable whether Fury will choose to fight Joyce this year because his dad, John Fury, views it as a “meaningless” fight because ‘The Juggernaut’ doesn’t possess a belt, and he’s not super popular.
Fury likely won’t want to risk getting beaten by Joyce and messing up his chances to fight Anthony Joshua for a massive money fight in Saudi Arabia this year.
If Fury loses to Joyce, he can forget about fighting Joshua in the Middle East in 2023. Fury would have intense pressure to try and avenge a loss to Joyce, particularly if it were a brutal knockout.
Joyce has the kind of engine where if he knocks Fury down like Deontay Wilder did multiple times; he’ll keep him on the canvas. He won’t let Fury off the hook by gassing out like Wilder.