Joe Joyce: I overlooked Zhilei Zhang once… that won’t happen again
oe Joyce insists he will not have lost any time in his bid to become world heavyweight champion if he can quickly avenge his loss to Zhilei Zhang.
The 37-year-old suffered a surprise defeat against Zhang after a sixth-round stoppage in April but is aiming to put that right by regaining the WBO interim title tomorrow at Wembley Arena.
“When I get the win, it will be like nothing’s changed really,” said Joyce. “It’s not like I got knocked out or anything, I just got my eye all bruised and it had to be stopped.
“As losses go, it’s not that bad. I have to come back bigger and stronger and go for the title. I have to get my tactics right, my body, my weight. I’ll be more of a force to be reckoned with.”
The ‘Juggernaut’ admits his first professional defeat shocked not just the crowd at the Copper Box but also him.
He said: “It just showed me maybe I’d taken my foot off the gas slightly. It was a wake-up call that things needed to change in the team and in myself going forward, to get right for this time around. We’ve been forced into change.
“I don’t think about losses, I believe I’ll beat him and the loss in April will have been just a bump in the road.”
China’s Zhang, 40, was written off before his demolition job on Joyce, who now has a 15-1 record and is still aiming to track down Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk, who hold the other major heavyweight belts.
“Normally it’s the other way around and people have underrated me,” Joyce said. “We were a bit caught up in the hype beforehand, me and my team were talking about what’s next.
“We overlooked him a little bit. It’s not a good look and I need to get back to winning ways.”
Zhang vs Joyce II will be shown live on TNT Sports. Tickets are available now from AXS.com and ticketmaster.co.uk
