Joe Joyce’s hopes of securing a massive heavyweight showdown against the likes of Tyson Fury, Oleksandr Usyk or Anthony Joshua have been dealt a major setback following a disastrous defeat by China’s Zhilei Zhang.
‘The Juggernaut’ lost his WBO interim title and undefeated professional record in a huge shock at London’s Copper Box Arena on Saturday night, with the fight waved off in round six after the ringside doctor was twice called up to assess Joyce’s badly damaged right eye that had been swollen shut.
Hard-hitting southpaw Zhang, who turns 40 this month, inflicted plenty of damage early after a trademark fast start to what was always expected to be an explosive clash between two towering but skilled heavyweights and could not miss with a vicious straight left hand, badly hurting his usually durable opponent in the second round.
He maintained that pressure thereafter even as Joyce recovered and tried to up the tempo, repeatedly landing the straight left and right hook to inflict more damage on a horribly bruised eye that got progressively worse and obviously obscured the Briton’s vision.
Joyce laboured to the sixth round and was initially allowed to continue after a first doctor’s assessment of his eye, though Zhang kept landing those spiteful punches and referee Howard Foster was left with no choice but to call a halt to proceedings after a second check shortly after.
Joyce had somehow been a round up on one scorecard at the time of the stoppage, while the other two judges only had Zhang up by a single round.
For Joyce, a devastating first pro loss aged 37 that deals an enormous blow to his ambitions of finally facing the likes of Fury or Joshua, while Zhang will now have his sights firmly set on a full title challenge of his own.
It was a perfect response to his hugely contentious first defeat by Filip Hrgovic on the Usyk-Joshua 2 undercard in Saudi Arabia last summer. Zhang is behind WBO contender Daniel Dubois and IBF challenger Hrgovic in a long list of mandatories for unified champion Usyk.
In Saturday’s co-main event, Mikaela Mayer dominated spirited late replacement opponent Lucy Wildheart to win the vacant WBC interim women’s lightweight title and earn a potential future showdown with undisputed champion Katie Taylor.
It was a much-needed comeback win for ex-unified super-featherweight titlist Mayer, who was returning to London following that gut-wrenching defeat by Alycia Baumgarnder in October in which she losts both her belts and unbeaten professional record.
Exciting heavyweight prospect Moses Itauma saw his formidable early knockout streak end after three pro bouts against the durable Ukrainian Kostiantyn Dovbyshchenko, but still showed off his significant quality and enormous potential in a valuable six-round win.
Earlier, Sam Noakes retained his Commonwealth and WBC Silver International lightweight title with a punishing second-round stoppage of Indian challenger Karthik Sathish Kumar that kept up his 100 per cent knockout record.
Denzel Bentley remains the British middleweight champion and is now the top contender for Hamzah Sheeraz’s Commonwealth gold after a devastating 45-second blitz of Scotland’s Kieran Smith.
Eithan James made the succession transition up to welterweight with an easy win over Bulgarian Georgi Velichkov, while Sonny Liston Ali, Seth Gyimah and Joel Kodua all tasted victory on the early undercard.
