A 37 Yr old that didn't turn pro till he was what 31 or 32 ? He's only had 16 fights and been in with parker, zhang, dubois, Jennings, hammer, stiverne, Ustinov. Yeh right show me a hw with a better resume than that after 16 fights.
Yes... He's been well-matched. The Parker win was impressive but it was still favourable styles. Dubois is VERY green and had been flattening binmen. Everyone else was severely past-it and Jennings/Takam gave him trouble I had people mock me for saying AJ beats Joyce. I know it's fashionable to hate AJ but give me a ****ing break. Joe is vulnerable to clean, straight shots Joe isn't a bum but he's not some top 3 monster either. Zhang isn't some can who went life or death with Forrest a few years ago either Styles make fights. For all we know Usyk beats Fury but loses to Hrgovic
Exactly, the more top guys lose, the better for boxing. No more rebuilders, continue to give them respect, get them big fights. This is the way to build interest.
Joyce vs Joshua makes sense now. Unless someone throws upwards of 100 million at Fury, Charr is next.
Think that is pretty much word for word the perfect answer to this question. I still think Joyce is a great addition to the division, and he admittedly surprised me with the Parker performance (though Parker's approach perplexed me a bit too). But once the band waggonners latched onto Joyce, the hype, as always, was getting a bit too much. TBRB ranking him #2 lol
3 things. His combination punch tenacity & stamina are actually near the top in a division where a lot are overweight and tire out. He did try to overwhelm Zhang with varied punches to the body & up but just couldn't land clean as they were slower arm punches, and most importantly couldn't get away from the left of Zhang. But yes, what you said was on the money. Even if some of us wanted to give him the Foreman that Morrison beat we couldn't because he would've probably just have walked into Foreman's shots instead of being on the back foot like the Duke. Lastly, to answer the thread question, yes Joyce was overrated. The most obvious flaw being lack of defense, and kind of 1 dimensional tenacity where he just overwhelms you with work-rate and size, which some of us knew would get him in trouble against skilled operators his own size. Zhang actually proved himself in the last 2 fights, and opened up more eyes on what he really brings to the division than some of us should've been paying more attention to. This shouldn't be a knock on Joyce or Hrg as they are both legit solid top 10 fighters, we'll just see if they can adjust. Zhang is also willing to fight anyone and that's great for what seems like a stale HW division where most seem to be avoiding risks. He was also saying before the Joyce fight that if he lost, he'd go back to the gym and try again. Gotta love that kind of mindset at his age. He's going for it he might derail more hype jobs.