Why didn't Juggernaut manage to protect his eye?

Go to your local boxing gym and find a southpaw and you'll discover why.

He couldn't get out of the way of the left even though he came to box early at a lighter weight...it was impossible. Tried moving to his left with the jab but it's no secret that Joyce is rather slow...unlike Zhang who is pretty quick for the weight.

It's a bad style matchup and always will be. He is a pressure attrition fighter. Zhang doesn't need to go to Joyce like Dubious he is the same size if not bigger.

Only advantage Joyce has which he couldn't fully utilize is his stamina...but to do that he has to get on Zhang's chest and push him back with constant pressure. Now that is very hard to do against Zhang who as I just said is the same size if not bigger and will counterpunch you with a brutal left hand.

Zhang is to Joyce as Foreman was to Frazier.

I don't see how Joyce can survive another eye closing session if he takes the rematch. He's met one of his very few matches.

 

Because he never had a defence to begin with lol.

He always opted to take punches, and he's never really been KO'd. Despite taking massive shots that would have KO'd other fighters, the fight was stopped due to a bad eye, it wasn't really a KO. Joyce could have carried on, but the ref made the right call to stop it to avoid Joyce getting brain injury.

 

No the referee stopped the fight because he would have lost his eye taking 6 more rounds of lefts to it. He's lucky if he escaped without a broken eye socket.

 

he is too slow, and he is too predictable. you cant win fights against schooled boxers with those deficiencies. its a wonder he made it this far...another testament to how historically weak this hw division has been.

 

He''s never going to be the elusive type or be the type to jump in and out of range, he's just too big a target and slow. What he did vs Dubois and likely what he wanted to do to Zhang was keep him on the end of the jab at the end of range and make Zhang come to him, so he could counter, meaning the speed of his shots increases as the opponent steps into the shot, giving them less time to see the shot coming and react.

But Zhang is a southpaw which means his lead hand blocks his jab and Zhang isn't like Dubois or Parker or anyone Joyce has faced he's a patient counter puncher and won't fall for the trap and be made to lead to step into Joyce's range to be countered himself.

So basically it was a bad style match up, he was always going to get caught and caught often that was never in doubt even by those who picked Joyce to win. Usually that isn't a problem for Joyce as his chin is one of the best and he might have been able to ride the storm but the shots from Zhang were just too powerful and caused damage like nobody else has been able to inflict on Joyce.

 

Rear straight is a 101 counter to both lead uppecut and lead hook. What else was he supposed to do with his left hand? Throw a jab at an obstructed punching lane? The traffick is intense in an open stance. If you aren't bettet at fencing/hand fighting, you can forget about your jab, and it's rather risky to throw a commited jab against an elite southpaw counterpuncher anyway because he can cross punch with his left cross.

 

He didn't even really try to defend............he thought he was gonna be able to weather anything Zhang threw (he kinda did) and get to Zhang. Zhang destroyed that eye faster than Joyce could walk him down.

Kinda a dumb strategy, just as bad as Cleverly trying to walk down Kovalev

 

Because he thought he would dismantle Zhang by continuous punching, just like he did to Dubois, Takam and Parker. He himself believed the hype that he was unstoppable, he thought he wouldn't be affected by Zhang's shots. His right eye woke him (and everyone) up from his delusions.

 

Cause he can't box.