Joe Joyce: the Most Overrated Heavy Since Michael Grant

Grant from Golota vs Joyce from Parker.

Who you got Hippie???

I think I like Grant's chances.

 

I'm not convinced.

Golota was a far sharper and more fluid puncher than Joyce. Grant perservered while exhibiting tremendous heart, and he battled his way back from adversity.

 

It's an interesting case.

My opinion - Joyce and Golota were both accumulation punchers with heavy hands, but I think Golota had better pop, better technique, and better all around technical ability. Compared to Joyce, even that version of Golota was like a speed demon.

For all of his faults, Grant could punch and he had a pretty decent jab and tremendous heart.

Grant's punch resistance (and career) went down hill fast after that. But that version of Grant? I think he could stand up to Joyce's power and pressure, while being offensively effective. Grant never hit as hard as Zhang, but he may have hit hard enough to crack Joyce.

 

OK!

Here's the big question then - does '99 Grant beat the Joyce who beat Parker? (I assume, perhaps incorrectly, that you'd agree with me that '96 Golota beats any version of Joyce, but I'd be curious to hear your opinion, knowing that Golota was always an unpredictable wild card)..

 

Actually he's achieved far more than his many detractors ever believed he would both amateur and pro so those people have had egg repeatedly splattered on their faces throughout the journey.

We've always been aware of his flaws and of the fact that HWs with no defence who catch everything their opponents throw with their faces are destined to come unstuck but he's proven so many wrong by even achieving what he has and he could've achieved more if not for some really dumb decisions

Robbed of Olympic gold

In the amateurs he beat the likes of

Jalolov
Hrgovic
Majidov
Yoka
Dychko
Frazer Clarke x 4
Leinier Perot
Viktor Vykhryst
Ali Eren Demirezen
Gasan Gimbatov
Joseph Goodall

In the pros he's beaten

All bar one via stoppage

He's stopped two current top 10 ranked HWs, the #3 and 6 ranked HWs, both current or previous HW champions

Parker
Dubois
Takam
Jennings
Stiverne
Ustinov
Hammer
Kiladze
Hanks
Thomas

And he's old, past his prime, and he's made some really dumb decisions like taking on Big Bang Zhang when he was the interim champ and was guaranteed a title shot

Then rematching him

And his weight in recent fights coming in at 280 or 280 + which has completely upset his slow-fast speed equilibrium which is devastating for an elite slow-fast speed fighter. Now he's just slow with zero defence

 

Here's a little factoid for the Juggernaut haters

The entire continent of North America can't produce a HW to best even this shot to smithereens version of Big Joe and it took a country with a population of over 1.412 billion to find a man who could knock him out