Tolerating the home guy contradicts the basics of every sport. Joyce won one round and turned his back in the second which should've been counted as a knockdown, but instead of that, the referee split them - "just take a little gift, Joe".
Yeah pretty awful scoring. I gave Joyce one round. Zhang was landing at will for most of the fight. To be fare to Howard Foster though he managed the fight well. Good stoppage at the right time. Can't really fault him this time. It actually hurts to say that.
Judging is based on what you like. Zhang was landing when he felt like it but he was landing in singles and flurries. Nor was he in constant control of each round, it was more measured occasional countering. You could clearly argue he had the better quality landed punches. Given those are some of the primary judging criteria, Zhang wasn't miles ahead in each round so you could excuse a judge scoring it tight eitherway. If judging was based purely on visible damage to the other opponent then it was a shut-out.
No. You could make a decent case for giving Joyce round 3...he was busier and Zhang didn't do much of anything. You could make a razor thin case for Joyce in rd 5 as well. Zhang conserved his energy there but what Zhang DID throw was heavier and had more effect than the more voluminous punches of Joyce. Nevertheless, if you want to give a close round to the home fighter, round five is your man. No serious case can be made for any of the other three rounds. Joyce may well have landed more, but in each of these rounds, Zhang's heavier punches were faaaaaar more devastating to Joyce than vice versa. In fact, but for the ref's unwarranted step-in in rd 2, Joyce would probably have tasted the canvas. Reasonable scores range from 48 - 47 in favour of Zhang to 49 - 45 for the same man.
Was rooting for Joyce but hate rotten cards so glad the big Chinaman got the stoppage as he fully deserved to win at the time the fight was stopped.
It doesn't really matter does it, he lost. I stated in a thread about JJ and his chin, sure he has a good one and takes a good shot, but at some point all those punches to head/chin will start to take its toll and let you down, and i saw that demise start to come to fruition against Zhang sadly. I think he can come back but not sure how effective he will be after this, he has taken a lot of shots in his fights and that is his style and ultimately his problem. I don't see him being the same after this.
I gave Joyce round 3 and I saw round 5 as being very close based on Joyce's activity, but Zhang was still landing the more meaningful blows. Joyce was pretty active in round 4 and although most of the punches landed on the gloves, I could see someone being tricked by that. With that in mind, this is an instance I can see being chalked up to bad judging as easily as corruption, but anything more than 3-2 would have to be corruption.
Yep. Whilst Zhang was busy covering up and unable to respond as much due to the increased aggression and work rate of his opponent. That is generalship. The aggression wasn't particularly effective but he wasn't being consistently countered and when he was Zhang was missing some too so you're basically judging between a guy making all the play and going for it against a guy shelling up landing the odd pot shot. Joyce may have been getting battered overall but that doesn't necessarily mean he was losing all the rounds.
I watched it this morning with no commentary. Nobody has done that to Joe ever. He got battered in there.
