By Charles Brun: Tony Bellew feels that Joe Joyce got “greedy” with his decision to face Zhilei Zhang after he’d already earned the WBO heavyweight mandatory spot to challenge Oleksandr Usyk for his three titles.
Bellew says Joyce (15-1, 14 KOs) should have just sat idle and waited his turn to fight Usyk rather than take on the “monster” Zhang (25-1-1, 20 KOs) and risk his spot.
Obviously, the 2016 Olympic silver medalist Joyce felt confident that he’d handle the southpaw Zhang with no trouble, look sharp and show the boxing world the difference between him and Filip Hrgovic, who’d beaten Zhilei by a controversial twelve round unanimous decision in August 2022 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
As it turns out, Joyce made a major mistake that not only tripped him up for a world title shot against Usyk but now puts him in a position where he’ll be putting his career on the line in the rematch with Zhang, should he choose to go in that direction.
If Joyce wants to recapture his WBO mandatory position, he’ll have to use his rematch clause to force a second fight with Zhang. If Joyce does that, there’s an excellent chance he’ll lose again to him.
A second defeat to Zhjang puts the soon-to-be 38-year-old Joyce’s career on skidrow. He’ll be too old to work his way back to a mandatory spot, and he can’t count on Tyson Fury, who he’s on friendly terms with, to throw him a bone for old time’s sake the way he did with 39-year-old British journeyman Derek Chisora.
Joyce has no other options but to use his rematch clause and hope he can beat Zhang next time by taking him to the later rounds, hoping he gets tired from hitting him with lead lefts all night.
By the time Zhang gets exhausted, Joyce’s right eye will have swollen shut again, just like in their fight on April 15th.
“I just think it was a little bit greedy taking that fight,” said Tony Bellew to iFL TV about Joe Joyce choosing to take the necessary fight against Zhilei Zhang.
“When you’re on the verge of a world title, and you’re mandatory, you just go, ‘You know what? We’re either going to sit and wait or have an easier fight; we don’t need to face this monster.’
“He went to the nail with Filip Hrgovic. I’m not saying he beat Hrgovic, but it was a really close, hard fight. So why do you need to face him?”
“Because he’s got the defeat to Hrgovic, you’ve got nothing to gain and everything to lose. And so it played out for Joe Joyce.”
