Joe Joyce shrugged off talk of retirement after falling to a second defeat in a matter of months to Zhilei Zhang on Saturday evening.
‘The Juggernaut’ arrived at Wembley Arena looking to avenge the first professional loss of his career, suffered back in April when Zhang inflicted significant damage to his right eye.
At 38 and having lost his WBO ‘interim’ heavyweight title crown, the pressure was on. Still, his decision to come in at a career-high weight of over 20st looked to have backfired even seconds into the defeat, with the Brit appearing sluggish.
Things did not improve and, by the time Zhang swept over a vicious haymaker in the third round, it felt as if Joyce had already been defeated.
Still, Joyce is refusing to rule out any talk of retirement and vowed to come back stronger. Quite where and when that will be, however, is the subject of much debate.
“This is not it for me, I’ve got plenty more in the tank,” he said.
“I’m just going to have to have a bit of time off, then come back new and improved.”
