Joe Joyce returns this Saturday against Filip Hrgovic in Queensberry’s first show on DAZN.
Joe ‘The Juggernaut’ Joyce will take what may be his last shot at repairing his professional career as he takes on former amateur rival, Filip Hrgovic.
Hrgovic serves as a late-replacement for Dillian Whyte, who withdrew with injury from the bout.
Joyce has just one loss in his last four fights and has been beaten by Zhilei Zhang and Derek Chisora in a huge fall from grace after his win over Joseph Parker.
Joe Joyce’s latest win came against man famous for biting British boxer
In 2023, Joyce voluntarily defended his WBO interim title, which would’ve secured him a shot at the world champion if he had just not fought this man, against Zhang, who just lost to Agit Kabayel, in London.
Joyce’s roll of the dice backfired, as he was stopped after swelling around his eye prevented him from continuing. The rematch, however, went even worse for the Brit, as he was stopped dramatically in round three.
‘The Juggernaut’ returned to the ring six months later against 21-2 Kash Ali, in a sluggish performance that ended in a final-round knockout for Joyce, whose mother is blind and spoke of her stress watching him fight.
Ali may seem to have a good record with only two defeats, but only had one noteworthy opponent, David Price, who he lost to after being disqualified for biting him
Ali was fined £10,000 and banned from the sport for six months back in 2019.
Joe Joyce KO’d the man Deontay Wilder couldn’t in 2019
The same year Ali was banned from boxing, Joyce was ascending the heavyweight division, and faced 25-3-1 Bermane Stiverne for the Commonwealth title.
Stiverne was coming off of his second loss at the hands of Deontay Wilder, and third of his career thus far, when he faced ‘The Juggernaut’.
In 2015 Stiverne broke Wilder’s 32-fight KO streak, and became the first man to hear the final bell against ‘The Bronze Bomber’.
Wilder, who returns against Tyrrell Herndon, claimed Stiverne’s WBC world title, and the pair rematched two years later, when Wilder did what he should’ve done the first time, and stopped Stiverne in one round.
Joyce, who eyes a rematch with Oleksandr Usyk – a man who beat him in the amateurs, knocked Stiverne out in round six, in what was one of the last fights of the former champion’s career.