The question fight fans are now asking is, do two defeats to the same guy equal a probable retirement for Joe Joyce? Two losses do not necessarily mean the end, not for any fighter, but Joyce will be asking himself some tough questions over the coming days and weeks. At age 38, Joyce isn’t blessed with too much potential rebuilding time. Zhilei Zhang, who might just be a fighter who has Joyce’s number, scored a devastating KO over Joyce last night in their return fight, the kind of devastating KO that can be hard to come back from.
But Joyce, speaking once again with IFL TV, this just hours after his third round defeat to “Big Bang” did say that his career is “not over,” that he feels “quite fresh” and that there are “plenty of great fights out there for me.”
Joyce may change his mind way more than once over the coming weeks, but for now, “The Juggernaut” says he will keep on rolling.
“My career’s not over. I’m not done yet,” Joyce, 15-2(14) said. “I’ve not got that many miles on the clock, and I feel okay, I feel like I can do a few more rounds! Obviously, I’m disappointed, but I’m not hurt or anything. I’ve got plenty more left to give to the sport. I’ll be in some other great fights. I’ll have some time off and then come back. There’s plenty of great fights out there for me.”
When asked about who he could perhaps fight as he mounts the comeback trail, Joyce said a rematch with Daniel Dubois (who Joe stopped back in November of 2020) is “possible, that could be a good fight.” Both men are of course with Frank Warren, so the rematch would be easy to make. Joyce, who says he can “still become heavyweight champion, this is just a bump in the road,” is a likeable person and he is easy to root for.
In the end, it will of course be his decision and his alone as far as what he does next. But you can bet your bottom dollar there will be a whole lot of people telling Joe what he should do, and that’s to retire.
What do YOU guys think, should Joyce fight on, or not?
