Joe Joyce, Overrated?

He showed heart no doubt but he wasn't able to impose himself at all, and looked shook early on by the power. As i stated to @Serge i'm not hating on Joyce i don't dislike the man at all, from interviews he seems like an ok fella. But that doesn't change the fact that Joyce was ridiculously overrated on this forum.

Can Joyce still beat other fighters in the top 10 ? absolutely. But he's H2H level has certainly gone down a notch or two, he's also not a young man at 37 and has a pretty damaged eye.

Will Joyce ever be the same again ? we shall see. But people claiming he was the 2nd coming of Foreman was ludicrous.

 

Odd to strip down 20 pounds lighter when your opponent has some power.

 

Just a horrible defence v a southpaw. The rest of Joyce is all right.

 

Wilder pre Fury looked to have a decent chin so depends how the chins holding up which is still unknown.

 

I think overall it's a combination of a few things.

Zhang is probably better than we thought, his skills actually impressed me more in the Joyce fight than the Hrgovic fight. He looked calm was pin point accurate, and to that point didn't really looked gassed to me as he had vs Hrgovic.

The is the issue i have and trust me i'm not some know it all, nor am i fan boy of anyone i always call it as i see it.

I always thought Joyce was heavily overrated, and i've been saying this prior to the fight with Zhang so i'm not saying this after the fact. There were people claiming he was 2nd coming of George Foreman, and that he would beat other ATG's just for beating Joseph Parker. And whilst the the performance against Parker was a solid one, i wasn't blown away by it like others were on this forum. Parker for me has never been one of the best Heavyweights.

Lastly i'm not trying to be one of those guys to kick a man when he's down, but honestly i always thought the hype for Joyce was a bit unreal to be quite honest.

 

Last month Fury said "Big Joe is my hardest test out there"

Usyk made mention "Joe is a fight I want if Belly runs"

World boxing fans were hyping the **** out of him...

Why there hell would he take a fight with Zhang when he is legit in the mix with the top few.... his management deserve the sack.

 

All of these guys are great fighters in their own ways

But everyone below Fury & Usyk has major weaknesses in one area of another which can be exploited horribly. Zhang was a horrible matchup and coming in light didn't help at all he could not avoid that left hand which he had planned to.

Fury & Usyk are the upper echolon

Wilder can also beat anybody with his crackpot power it's just a question of if he can land it and avoid getting hurt himself which sums up his whole style.

Even AJ before he lost his confidence was a major threat to almost everyone but the guys who know how to use their feet well or counter.


We are in a transitionary phase in Fury's heavyweight division right now. Most of these guys are 1 loss away from retirement or losing out on a big money paycheck. Some of the freshblood will come through shortly also. We just have to be patient and wait for the chips to lay down.

 

I still think he has a good shot against usyk, fury or AJ.

AJ hasn't got a chin, usyk isn't going to cave his face in and neither is fury.

Styles make fights they got it wrong.

This is the problem with fighter who will fight anyone. Look and Joyce, AJ and whyte. All fight anyone and all came up short.

Meanwhile you've the big gypsy ducker swerving everyone and being hailed as an atg.

 

It's fine if you rated Joyce prior to his loss to Zhang, but there's a difference between rating him and overrating him to ludicrous levels. And there were alot of comments about how Joyce will be the man of the division, how he's the 2nd coming of Foreman, how he would be too much for other ATG Heavyweights.

Prior to his loss to Zhang i was stating the samething, and after his loss to Zhang i'm still stating the samething so my opinion hasn't changed.

 

Joe's resume is **** for a 37 year old

 

I'm not writing him off i just don't think he will ever be the man of the division, your right that regarding the eye test he doesn't look spectacular. But my issues were mostly due to his very poor defense and the fact he was very slow, so i always thought he could be vulnerable to a good boxer or against a fighter who could bang.

For example Big George in his 2nd career was pretty slow, but he had an ATG jab exceptional timing pin point straight punches and adapted his defense using cross arm defense.

All in all Joyce can definitely still beat fighters in the top 10, although we will have to wait and see how Joyce recovers mentally and physically after the damaging loss to Zhang. It's definitely shook up the Heavyweight division, and i'm curious to see how Zhang does against other Heavyweights in the top 10.

Lastly i think looking back at this thread maybe my wording of the title may of seemed arrogant, but trust me that wasn't my intention at all. I may even edit the title so it doesn't come across that way.

 

Yep, he went from underrated to overrated and now back to perhaps underrated again. He'll never be the top guy but he's good enough to be operating at the top level.

 

The last part of your post is how I see it, again I'm not stating that Joyce can't beat other fighters in the top 10.

My issue is that people were claiming he was 2nd coming of George Foreman, and that he would be the man just for beating Joseph Parker. Who for me was never one of the best Heavyweights he was always below the very top guys.