Joe Joyce will be fighting the warhorse Dereck Chisora this summer in a heavyweight clash on July 27th at the O2 Arena in London, England.
The poster for the Joyce vs. Chisora fight has the tagline, ‘Go Big or Go Home.’ What a label.
Joyce Deserves Better
The 2016 Olympic silver medalist Joyce (16-2, 15 KOs) deserves better than this, doesn’t he? Joyce has only lost to Zhilei Zhang, and that guy arguably beat Filip Hrgovic.
Joyce already had a confidence booster in his last fight against Kash Ali last March, which he won by a tenth-round knockout. Why is he being fed the journeyman-esque Chisora? The Juggernaut doesn’t need this washed-up has-been.
Joyce turns 39 in September and can’t afford to invest a year or two in tune-ups to regain his confidence after his back-to-back losses to Zhang.
The Juggernaut Joye already got a tune-up against Kash, so ideally, Joyce should be thrown back into the deep waters against top-tier heavyweights rather than fed another Hors d’œuvre by fighting the shop-worn, over-the-hill 40-year-old Chisora (34-13, 23 KOs).
Chisora: The Million-Dollar Journeyman?
Despite being a journeyman through most of his career, ‘War’ Chisora has made a huge fortune, with a net worth estimated at $15 million, which is hard to believe given that his best win came against 38-year-old Carlos Takam.
Tyson Fury has helped Chisora, fighting him three times for no apparent reason other than to get sure-thing wins.
Chisora has lost four out of his last six fights and is coming off of a win over 42-year-old Gerald Washington. I had Chisora losing to 41-year-old Kubrat Pulev in their fight in London in 2022, but he was given a very questionable 12-round split decision win. If you count that as a loss for Chisora, he’s lost five out of his last six fights.
I guess the Brits will be chomping at the bit to see Joyce and Chisora mix it up, but it’s DOA as far as the rest of the world. All I can say is poor Joyce. What’s left of his career is being wasted on fighting horrible opposition.
Joyce’s Redemption: A Wish List of Worthy Opponents
Joyce should be fighting one of these contenders to climb his way back to the top so he can make some coin:
Fabio Wardley
Agit Kabayel
Frank Sanchez
Richard Torrez Jr.
Bakhodir Jalolov
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