By Brian Webber: WBO interim heavyweight champion Joe Joyce weighed in at a lean 256 lbs on Friday at the weigh-in for his title defense against Zhilei Zhang for their fight this Saturday, April 15th, at the Copper Box Arena in London. For his part, the big 6’6″ Zhang (24-1, 19 KOs) weighed in at 278 lbs. Joyce vs. Zhang event will be shown live on ESPN+ this Saturday.
Joyce (15-0, 14 KOs) looked pretty intense during the staredown as if he was trying to intimidate Zhang, but it didn’t appear to work. Zhang has too much amateur experience to be frightened by mean stares. After the face-off, Zhang appeared to want to shake hands, but Joyce quickly turned away before he could offer his hand.
“No one can complain about this fight. Joe is ready for the top guys in the division, and when I say that, I mean Fury and Usyk. I think he’s ready to fight them guys now,” said Carl Frampton to Secondsout about Joe Joyce.
“He could have sat and waited [for Oleksandr Usyk] and had a real gimme fight. This is a fight that I think he wins, but it’s a tough fight for him. Zhang is a southpaw; he’s big, and he’s 19 stone+.
“He can really fight and is tough, durable, and fit as well. It’s a cracking fight, it really is. So you have to give Joe a lot of credit for taking this one.
“I think he can beat both guys [Fury & Usyk]. Whether he beats them or not is a different thing. I think Usyk causes him problems early on, but with Joe’s engine, I think he’ll get to Usyk at some point and start to win rounds and potentially even stop him.
“His engine is unbelievable, and his durability is unbelievable. We saw a fight between Usyk and Joyce in the WSB [World Series of Boxing], and Joe got his head boxed off for a couple of rounds, and then he came into the fight. He won a couple of rounds in the end, so it was a reasonably close fight over five rounds. Now expand that over twelve rounds.
“Yeah, Joe has a chance of beating Fury and Usyk. I think he has a slightly better chance of beating Usyk. I don’t think Joe Joyce has ever been terrified of fighting anybody, never mind sparring anybody,” said FFrampton asking about Joyce fighting Anthony Joshua.
“I imagine AJ was #1 in the amateurs when he was there, and I imagine he would have had some success with Joe in the amateur format. Shorter fights.
“I think if you’re anyone in the heavyweight division, you don’t want to fight Joe Joyce. He gives you a horrible night, and he’s such a horrible guy to fight. Shots that bounce off the top of his head seem to have no effect on him,” said Frampton.
