Ahead of his bout with Francis Ngannou, Joe Joyce, who is now making a comeback, took a minute to issue a caution to Anthony Joshua, his British heavyweight opponent.
Joshua and Ngannou are scheduled to square off in Saudi Arabia on March 8. In order to evaluate his performance against Tyson Fury, the former UFC champion, Joshua will be looking to Ngannou as a benchmark in the boxing world.
When Fury and Ngannou fought back in October, Fury notably struggled to fully dominate Ngannou, which led to considerable debate about his decline and also saw Ngannou listed in the WBC Top 10.
The winner of the Oleksandr Usyk vs. Fury undisputed battle on February 17 will face the winner of this matchup between the two large guys.
Joyce has talked to Queensbury on Joshua’s upcoming match. Joyce is scheduled to make his ring comeback on March 16 against Kash Ali after suffering two devastating defeats to Zhilei Zhang in 2023.
Fantastic fight, I’m excited about it. Both are strong, powerful hitters. I believe that Ngannou lacks some boxing expertise in terms of style, and Joshua looked better in his most recent performance than in his earlier ones.
“Ngannou hits really hard, so I think this fight will be great. The way he fought Fury and got the only knockdown in the fight, I think this fight will be great.”
He faltered when asked to call it.
“I’m not sure, because what would happen if Ngannou gives him a powerful blow and he is unable to recover? It’s a fairly even fight.