Joe Joyce's potential

He's taken a couple of solid shots bang on the kisser without visible hurt, from Stiverne, Dubois and Jennings off the top of my head. His chin's not in question.

Around the one minute mark Stiverne lands a flush OH right on Joyce.

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This type of talk is reductive anyway. Joyce isn't some goon like Wach who's only good to act as a human punchbag. He's a legit world class operator with a number of qualities of which physical toughness is one component.

 

Good shot and yes he doesn't flinch.
I agree he's got more than pure toughness, but I don't agree that he's a world class operator, more Euro level.

 

Euro level these days more or less means world class. Regardless, I don't see anyone outside of Joshua, Fury, Usyk and maybe Whyte beating him. Age and inactivity will be his major opponents right now.

 

I think Joyce destroys Whyte and I don't think age will be a huge factor. He came to the sport late at 23 and there's something Foreman-esque about him, I suspect he will age very well.

 

Yet his punches couldn't bother a shop warn Bryant Jennings while old man Luis Ortiz destroyed Jennings. People who are light punchers occasionally break bones. Joyce is slow, he has no real skill and he has yet to beat anybody worth mentioning.

 

Actually Euro level doesn't equal world class. Joshua got knocked stupid by tub of lard Andy Ruiz. Tyson Fury best wins were against a old washed up Wlad Klitschko and a hyped up Deontay Wilder. There are no world class heavyweights are the moment and the last time there was a world class heavyweight was Lennox Lewis and he is Jamaican.

 

No, the last world class heavyweight, assuming you're totally dismissing anyone fighting today, was Wlad.

Right now the only world class non-European heavyweights are Wilder, Hunter and Ruiz. Parker if you want to count his win over Chisora legit. That's less than half of the top ten. Euro-level = world level.

 

I wouldn't be shocked if he beat him as well, but Whyte's proven me wrong a couple of times in the past so I'm willing to give him a chance here. Joyce is a very solid unit though, and I agree that age won't affect him as much as it would other HWs that rely more on speed or sharpness. Might affect his workrate, but his other qualities are not going to drastically diminish any time soon.

 

His career will proceed as fast as the jab he throws.

 

The jab that rarely misses?