Joe Joyce confirms he’ll be trained by Abel Sanchez now

By Tim Royner: Joe Joyce (5-0, 5 KOs) has made his decision to be trained by Abel Sanchez out of the U.S. 2016 Olympic super heavyweight Silver medalist Joyce will now be sharing the same gym as middleweight champion Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin at Big Bear, California.

Golovkin is also trained by Sanchez, so it should give the 6’6” Joyce a chance to learn some things from him as well.

Joyce recently passed up the chance to fight Nick Webb last Saturday night due to him going through a transition period of switching from his previous trainer Ismael Salas to Sanchez.

”Joe has made up his mind. He feels comfortable,” Abel Sanchez said to skysports.com about Joyce. ”I had Lenroy Thomas here in camp sparring with Murat Gassiev. Thomas told me about a guy he had fought. He said: ‘Gassiev hits like that Joe Joyce guy – he hits you, it hurts, and you remember nothing’. That was the first time I’d heard Joe’s name.”

Joyce knocked out Lenroy Thomas in the 2nd round on May 6 in an impressive performance. Thomas had previously beaten Matchroom Boxing fighter David Allen by a 12 round split decision last year in May. Joyce’s performance in beating Thomas was a real eye-opener in showing the boxing world that he has the kind of talent that will enable him to get to the next level.

The magical question is will Abel Sanchez be able to take Joyce’s career to the next level. Sanchez looked helpless working the corner of his fighter former IBF/WBA cruiserweight champion Murat Gassiev in his unification fight against WBC/WBO champion Aleksandr Usyk in their World Boxing Super Series cruiserweight final a couple of weeks ago in Moscow, Russia. No matter what Sanchez told Gassiev to try and do in that fight against Usyk, he was unable to follow his instructions. When Sanchez told Gassiev to throw more punches, he did the opposite in throwing fewer. The positive that Sanchez will have in training Joyce is he does a good job of following instructions given to him by his corner. When Joyce is told to do something by his trainer, he’s able to follow directions well, which is something we saw Gassiev unable or unwilling to do against Usyk.

”The steps may get harder, but don’t stop. The view is beautiful from the top! #THEJUGGERNAUT,” Joyce said on his Twitter.

Sanchez is still going to have his work cut out for him trying to improve Joyce’s hand speed, as that’s the one flaw that he has in his game. He’s got plenty of punching power, but his speed is lacking. For Joyce to beat the better fighters at heavyweight like Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder, he’s going to need to figure out how to stay close enough to them to where his lack of hand speed isn’t as much of a limiting factor. The other thing that Sanchez has working against him in training Sanchez is his age. Joyce already 32-years-old, so Sanchez won’t have much time to get him ramped up to fight against the likes of Joshua, Tyson Fury and Wilder. Joyce’s promoters are going to need to speed him along in putting him in with better competition almost immediately if they want him to get ranked high enough to get a world title shot. Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn likely will never give Joyce a title shot as a voluntary. Joyce will need to become the mandatory to Joshua before he’s given a title shot against him, and that could take a long time before that happens.

Joyce’s last fight was against journeyman Ivica Bacurin (30-14-1) on June 15, and he had little problems stopping him in the 1st round. Joyce shouldn’t be still fighting opposition like Bacurin if he’s going to get pushed up the rankings in the heavyweight division.