Road to Redemption – The journey back for Juggernaut Joe Joyce begins in March
The Juggernaut's journey back to contention begins with Kash Ali (21-2, 12KO) on March 16.
Joe Joyce (15-2, 14KO) ended a nightmare 2023 suffering a second consecutive knockout loss to Chinese powerhouse Zhilei Zhang in September. That third-round destruction had followed on from a sixth-round stoppage five months prior in April.
Despite his career hanging in the balance at the advanced age of 38, the Putney puncher isn't ready to hang up his gloves yet, not while the heavyweight division is bustling with so much activity for the first time in ages.
The Tokyo 2016 Olympic silver medalist has decided to go again and his comeback looks likely to take place on Queensberry’s March 16 date in Birmingham.
As reported by Boxing News this week, David Adeleye will challenge for Solomon Dacres’ English heavyweight title that night and Joyce-Ali will provide more heavyweight action on the card that is stacking up by the day.
Birmingham-born Ali has not boxed since last July, which was his only fight of the year, when he lost on points after six-rounds against Bohdan Myronets in Edinburgh, who then went on to upset Nathan Gorman after.
The 31-year-old from Rotherham had been on a six-fight winning streak following on from that shameful disqualification loss to David Price in 2019, when he bizzarely took bites out of the heavyweight from Liverpool. Ali knows that an upset win over Joyce will catapult him into huge heavyweight showdowns later in the year, and will be especially incentivised after seeing Zhang shatter his invincibility twice last year.
However, Joyce has operated at world level and has respectable wins over Daniel Dubois, Joseph Parker, Bermane Stiverne and Bryant Jennings.