Hearn delivers ruthless Joyce assessment and makes retirement claim

Eddie Hearn believes Joe Joyce is not an elite heavyweight. The Brit was recently beaten for the first time in his professional career by Zhilei Zhang in a stunning upset, that Hearn claims ‘shows his level’.

Joyce was well beaten on Saturday night as his fight with Zhang was waved off in the sixth round. The Brit’s right eye closed completely shut after eating a barrage of straight lefts from his foe, leaving referee Howard Foster with no choice but to halt the contest.

With that loss, he dropped his WBO interim title and his mandatory status for a clash with unified heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk. A rematch clause has been signed into the contract and both Joyce and his promoter Frank Warren have affirmed this will be their next move.

However, if Joyce chooses not to run it back with Zhang, Hearn believes he should retire over concerns for his health and his ceiling in the sport.

“The reality is, Joe Joyce, has never boxed an elite heavyweight. Zhilei Zhang is not an elite heavyweight,” Hearn told IFL TV.

“Joe wasn’t good enough to deal with Zhilei Zhang. When you sell your attributes based on ‘you can hit me as hard as you like, and I’ll keep coming!’ – that’s not the recipe for longevity in a career… He gets hit by absolutely everything, Joe Joyce. I would understand if he retired from boxing.

“He’s taken unbelievable punishment in sparring, in amateur tournaments and even in the professional code and it was really uncomfortable watching that on Saturday. If you can’t beat Zhilei Zhang, you have absolutely no chance of winning a world heavyweight title, no chance.

“If Oleksandr Usyk had boxed Joyce on Saturday night it would’ve been one of the greatest mismatches of all time. If Zhilei Zhang is doing that to him, Usyk would have absolutely peppered him.”

Prior to the loss, many boxing pundits, most notably Teddy Atlas were backing Joyce to beat Anthony Joshua. But Hearn says AJ ‘would ping him’ all over the ring.

“The reality is Joe Joyce is not an elite heavyweight and you can talk about ‘Oh he’d steamroll Anthony Joshua’, do you know the speed of AJ compared to Zhang?” he continued. “AJ would ping him absolutely everywhere.” He added: “Joe has got a massive decision now, because if he doesn’t rematch Zhang, he should retire.”