Joe Joyce raves about sparring with Tyson Fury

By Scott Gilfoid: #10 WBA heavyweight contender Joe Joyce (6-0, 6 KOs) is really impressed with the sparring that he’s done with former unified heavyweight champion Tyson Fury (27-0, 19 KOs) in Big Bear, California. Joyce is now trained by Abel Sanchez, the same trainer that former middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin is trained by. Joyce says that Fury, 30, is “the most talented I’ve been in the ring with,” according to Michael Benson.

Joyce, 33, is getting ready for a potential fight against former heavyweight world title challenger Gerald Washington (19-2-1, 12 KOs) in December. That’s a big step up for the 6’6″ Joyce. Washington is just as big as Joyce, and he’s been in the ring with Deontay Wilder, Jarrell ‘Big Baby’ Miller and Eddie Chambers.

“Just need confirmation to get this party started,” Joe Joyce said to Behind the Gloves about a fight against Gerald Washington. “I’m looking forward to putting on another explosive performance. Gerald Washington is a solid opponent, and he’s got a lot of boxing skills. He’s a good step up for me, and I accept the challenge and get in the ring to put on another great display. I like his style. Here in the U.S, I’ve done some work with Bermane Stiverne and Dominic Breazeale,” Joyce said.

Washington, 36, is coming off of a nice 10 round unanimous decision win over John Wesley Nofire last June. In Washington’s fight before that, he lost to Jarrell ‘Big Baby’ Miller by an 8th round stoppage in July 2017. Washington came close to knocking out the 298 lb Miller in the 5th round after hitting him with a flurry of shots. Miller was within an eyelash of being knocked out in the round, but somehow he weathered the storm and was able to survive. It appeared that Washington got tired of punching the defenseless Miller in the head with punches, and that’s what saved ‘Big Baby.’ If Washington hadn’t gassed out, he would have knocked him out. That performance showed that Washington is a threat to the top heavyweights. In Washington’s 5th round knockout loss to Deontay Wilder in February of last year, he was doing well until getting caught in the 5th by a right hand from the talented Deontay. Washington was getting the better of Wilder at times in the first four rounds. Two of the judges had the fight knotted up at 38-38, 38-38 at the time of the stoppage.

“I’ve been lucky being on the GB team,” Joyce said. “I’ve had Frazer Clarke, Anthony Joshua, Daniel Dubois, Nathan Gorman, and even Lawrence Okolie stepped up as well. I had some good sparring there. I managed to work with Bermane Stiverne and Dominic Breazeale out here as well. I’ve sparred with all the top heavyweights, and fought them in the amateurs. I hear Lawrence Okolie and [Ivan] Dychko may pass through [Big Bear training camp]. We got amazing sparring up here,” Joyce said.

Joyce has packed on a lot of size lately, weighing in at 263 lbs in his last fight in stopping former cruiserweight Iago Kiladze in the 5th round last month on September 30. In Joyce’s previous fight, he had weighed in at 251 lbs for his match against journeyman Ivica Bacurin in stopping him in the 1st round last June. For the most part, Joyce had fought in the 250s since turning pro in 2017. But the added weight seems to have made Joyce a more formidable puncher. He looks like a young George Foreman now that he’s fighting in the low 260s. The weight is solid, and he’s quite powerful with his shots. Joyce’s hand speed isn’t great, but his shots are so heavy. He’s very much like a young Foreman. The difference is Foreman had a great jab and uppercut that he liked to use to win his fights. Joyce doesn’t have the same powerful jab as Foreman possessed, and he doesn’t throw a lot of uppercuts.

“He’s so skillful,” Joyce said about Oleksandr Usyk. “It was walk in the park for him at World Series Boxing. I think his toughest fight was against me, and I was really like a novice. It makes me cringe when I watch the fight back. I think he’d do well because he’s so skilled, but maybe in the late rounds, and the heavyweights manage to get their punches in, maybe if they get one on his chin, maybe he’ll get hurt. We’ll see how it goes. We’ll see if he can mix it with the big boys. I think it’s a good match-up,” Joyce said about Usyk’s fight next month against former World Boxing Council cruiserweight champion Tony Bellew on November 10. “I’d like to see Bellew win. You never know with Bellew. He might come through, but Usyk is so world class. Coming up from the amateurs, and a gold medalist, and he’s had all the experience in WSB and professional. He’s gathered up all those belts [at the pro level at cruiserweight] in the World Boxing Super Series. He’s on fire right now,” Joyce said.

It’s pretty clear that Bellew has got his hands full in facing Usyk next month on November 10. Joyce can hope all he wants about Bellew beating Usyk, but it’t not likely to happen. That fight is a mismatch on paper, and about the only thing that Bellew can try to do is to swing for the fences and hope that he brains Usyk with a big punch like he did against David Haye in their rematch last May. Bellew is going to likely get out-boxed by Usyk. It probably won’t be a knockout, because Usyk isn’t a big puncher, but it’s going to be a miserable fight for Bellew nonetheless. He might end up wishing he was knocked out by the time the fight is over with.

I“As you can tell from Tyson’s style, he’s very mobile and agile,” Joyce said about his sparring with Tyson Fury. “It’s quite hard to land a shot on him. It’s really good sparring and training. It’s a good learning experience. It’s good having him up here for training at altitude. It’s going to be beneficial for both of us,” Joyce said.

It doesn’t matter how elusive Fury is. If he can’t find some offense against Wilder, he’s going to get knocked out by him at some point in the fight. Wilder, 6’7″, is tall, fast, powerful and fearless. He’s not like Wladimir Klitschko, who fought Fury like he was afraid of his slapping shots in their fight in 2015. Wladimir had no faith in his ability to take a counter shot from Fury after he would miss a punch. In a nutshell, Wladimir lacked the confidence in his chin for him to let his hands go. It would have been an easy fight for Wladimir if he’d thrown punches. Even if he missed with 90% of his shots in the fight, Wladimir still would have won if he’d let his hands go. Wilder isn’t that type of fighter to hold back with his punches.

“It’s going to be a difficult fight for both of them,” Joyce said about the Fury vs. Wilder fight. “They both have an awkward style. Wilder, with his wild punches, and Fury with his slick, unorthodox style. It just depends on whether Wilder can get that shot off or if Fury is going to out-box him. If Wilder is coming over to the UK, than Joshua should get the lion’s share [of the purse for the unification fight]. If Joshua comes over here [United States] to fight him, it’s a big risk for Joshua. Obviously, Tyson Fury is the lineal heavyweight champion, so that raises his stock to be on an equal peg with him [Joshua],” Joyce said.

So there it is. Joyce thinks Wilder deserves a 50-50 purse split for the Joshua fight if he beats Fury on December 1. Joyce needs to let Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn that Wilder rates a 50-50 split after he beats Fury, because right now, Eddie is talking about Wilder getting an 80-20 and 70-30 split for the fight. Hearn’s stance of not wanting to offer Wilder the kind of dough that he deserves given his popularity and his prestigious World Boxing Council heavyweight title, it screams out that he doesn’t want to make the fight. Joyce has his head screwed on straight in talking about Wilder deserving 50 percent of the loot once he whips Fury on the 1st of December.

“I’m only a few fights away,” Joyce said from getting a world title shot. “I’m Top 10. I’m moving up. In a couple of more fights, I should be in the mix,” Joyce said.

In a perfect world, Joyce would get a world title shot after three more fights, but it’s unlikely to happen. If Joyce were signed with Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing stable, he probably be getting a world title shot in his next fight on April 13. I could see Hearn sticking Joyce in with Joshua on April 13 at Wembley Stadium in London, England, as that would be a far more appealing fight for the fans than him putting Dillian ‘The Body Snatcher’ Whyte in with AJ for a needless rematch. Joshua already knocked Whyte out in the 5th round in 2015, and there’s no need for a second fight. At least Joyce would be an opponent for Joshua where the outcome wouldn’t be predictable. Joyce reportedly wore Joshua down in sparring and gave him major problems.