British Heavyweight Hopeful Joe Joyce is on the Fast Track to Fame and Fortune

Joe Joyce continues his fast rise up the heavyweight ladder on Feb. 23 when he takes on Bermane Stiverne at London’s 02 Arena on a card headlined by the match between James DeGale and Chris Eubank Jr. Much ado is being made of the fact that Joyce is meeting a former world heavyweight title-holder in only his eighth pro bout, but Joyce 7-0 (7 KOs) is far more experienced than his pro record suggests and he should have little difficulty turning away Stiverne (25-3-1, 21 KOs) who turned 40 in November and has had only one fight in the last 39 months.

Stiverne, born in Haiti, the youngest of 14 children, was raised in Miami and Montreal and has spent the better part of the last 20 years in Las Vegas. He won the WBC version of the world heavyweight title in May of 2014 with a sixth round stoppage of tough but limited Chris Arreola, a fighter he had previously out-pointed. He lost the belt in his first defense to Deontay Wilder who won a wide decision in a ho-hum fight.

Stiverne was once known for being the only man to go the distance with Wilder (a distinction he now shares with Tyson Fury). But nowadays, the image that most people have of him is derived from his second encounter with Wilder who packed him off to dreamland in the opening stanza where he reposed with his legs tucked awkwardly beneath him and his head resting on a lower strand of rope. The snapshot of him in dreamland went viral and will shadow him until the end of his days.

If this is the overriding and undying image of him, that’s a cheap shot, but as heavyweight champions go he ranks near the far lower end of the totem pole.

Joe Joyce, who is of Scotch-Irish and Nigerian descent and holds a degree in fine arts from Middlesex University, represented Great Britain in the 2016 Rio Olympics where he won a silver medal in the super-heavyweight division. In the finals he lost a split decision to Tony Yoka of France. Consistent with the history of boxing in the Olympics, the decision was controversial.

Joyce was a highly decorated amateur before the Rio games. Moreover, he had 13 bouts under the rubric of the World Series of Boxing.

The World Series of Boxing, now in its ninth season (although its future is murky), was the brainchild of Taiwanese architect Wu Ching-Kuo who assumed the presidency of AIBA, the international governing body of amateur boxing, in 2006 and held that post until he was forced out in November of 2017. The WSB is team competition. The various national teams are permitted to recruit boxers from other countries with the result that the best amateur boxers in the world invariably gravitate to the WSB which was designed to provide a bridge between the amateur and professional levels.

Joe Joyce compiled a 12-1 mark in the World Series of Boxing where all bouts are scheduled for five rounds. His lone defeat came at the hands of Oleksandr Usyk in 2013.

When Joyce turned pro, he was already 32 years old (he turned 33 in September). His co-promoters David Haye and Richard Schaefer had no alternative but to put him on a fast track. His very first pro fight, against flabby but durable Ian Lewison, was scheduled for 10 rounds. Joyce took him out in the eighth, but not before eating several hard right hooks.

The renowned trainer Ismael Salas, the former head coach of the Cuban and Thai national teams (and one of David Haye’s former trainers) was brought in to tighten his defense with salutary results. Salas also improved Joyce’s knockout power. In his six subsequent fights, Joyce answered the bell for only 11 rounds.

With Salas now living in semi-retirement in Doha, Qatar, Joyce was in need of a new trainer. He found it while serving as Tyson Fury’s sparring partner at Abel Sanchez’s compound in Big Bear, California. Sanchez and Joyce will be a team going forward.

Joyce, who stands six-foot-six and customarily carries about 260 pounds, has vaulted ahead of England’s other rising heavyweight contenders, Nathan Gorman (15-0, 11 KOs) and Daniel Dubois (9-0, 8 KOs), as an object of curiosity. Dubois, Frank Warren’s 21-year-old wunderkind, has a date with Romania’s Razvan Cojanu on March 8. Cojanu is a former world title challenger but will be easy meat for Dubois.

While Bermane Stiverne has scant chance of upsetting Joe Joyce, the pre-fight posturing should steal the spotlight from the main event. That’s because Stiverne is promoted by Don King who was in fine fettle when the fight was announced. Stiverne, bloviated the indefatigable 87-year-old King, is “retooled, resuscitated, renewed, rejuvenated and recommitted…God save the Queen but heaven help Joe Joyce.”

That’s vintage Don King who still has no peers as the ringmaster at the circus.

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