Heavyweight prospect Joe Joyce (1-0, 1 KOs) has been added to the undercard of the David Haye vs. Tony Bellew rematch on December 17 at the Indigo at The O2 in London, UK. Joyce doesn’t have an opponent yet, but there’s a possibility that British heavyweight champion Sam Sexton (24-3, 9 KOs) could be the guy that he faces on the card.
According to promoter Eddie Hearn, the 33-year-old Sexton wants to be paid “silly money” to take the fight with the 6’6” Joyce, so it’s unclear if he’ll be getting the fight or not.
The 2016 Olympic super heavyweight silver medalist Joyce is coming off an impressive 8th round knockout win in his debut last Friday night against Ian Lewison at the Indigo at the O2. Joyce used his size, powerful jab and left hooks to break Lewison down until the fight was halted in the 8th round after he’s been knocked down.
“I think David Haye wants to put Joe Joyce in a fight. They’re trying to make Sam Sexton,” said Hearn to IFL TV. “I think they want to be paid silly money. There’s the right price and the wrong price,” said Hearn.
Joyce is going to be pushed quickly to get him a world title shot soon. If Haye can get him Sexton or a similar opponent for the December 17 fight date, then they can quickly move up to European level to have him challenge for the EBU heavyweight strap against the winner of the Dereck Chisora vs. Agit Kabayel fight. Those two are battling each other next month on November 4 in Monte Carlo. Joyce looks more than good enough to beat Kabayel and Chisora. A fight against the winner of that match in early 2018 would be idea.
Joyce looks like he would give Anthony Joshua all he could handle right now. With Joyce’s size, jab and powerful left hook, he would be a real problem for Joshua to deal with if the two of them were to fight each other right now. It’s not likely that Joyce will get a shot at fighting for a world title against Joshua until at least 2019. Joshua appears to have a full slate for 2018 with potential fights against Joseph Parker, Deontay Wilder and Dillian Whyte. At the earliest, Joyce could potentially meet up with Joshua in 2019. Joyce will need to keep working on his boxing skills, and he’ll obviously need to win all his fights to get that title shot.
Well, if Sexton doesn’t take the fight against Joyce for the money that’s being offered to him, then it would be nice to see someone like British domestic level fighter Dave Allen (12-3-1, 9 KOs) get the fight. I don’t know if Hearn would be agreeable to letting the 25-year-old Allen take a dangerous fighter like Joyce, given that he’s not one of his Matchroom Sport stable fighters. Allen has lost 3 out of his last 5 fights, and his career is looking bad right now.
Allen will be fighting against Scott Saward (3-0) this Saturday night on the undercard of the Anthony Joshua vs. Carlos Takam card at the Principality Arena in Cardiff, Wales. Allen is also already scheduled to be fighting on the Haye vs. Bellew card on December 17 in a rematch against Lenroy Thomas (21-4, 10 KOs). Allen lost a 12-round split decision to Thomas earlier this year on Kell Brook vs. Errol Spence Jr. card on May 27 at Bramall Lane in Sheffield, England.
Allen wasn’t supposed to lose the fight to the 32-year-old Thomas, but he discovered the hard way that the American had a little bit too much talent for him. Going into that fight, Thomas had been knocked out in the early rounds by Andrey Fedosov, Dominic Breazeale and Arron Lyons. Hearn might have figured that Allen could handle Thomas based on the American’s struggles in the past against punchers, but that didn’t turn out to be the case. Allen wound up getting beaten to the punch and dominated most of the fight.
“I’m very pleased that we’ve got Dave [Allen] and [Scott] Saward. It’s a great opportunity for him, and then he’ll be fighting Leroy Thomas on December the 17th,” said Hearn about Dave Allen being added to this Saturday’s Joshua vs. Takam card. “Scott Seward is from Kent; 2 Brits having a tear up. Dave Allen gets a fight. He gets paid. It’s important to get him out. It’s a great opportunity to box on this card. I’m not saying he’s lucky to be on, but keep him on the bill, get him paid. Sometimes things happen for a reason. David Allen is only going to get better. It’s only going to get fitter. He’s only going to get stronger,” said Hearn.
Dave Allen has suffered 3 losses since last year in losing to Lenroy Thomas, Luis Ortiz and Dillian Whyte. The only thing you can say about those fights is none of those fighters looked good in beating Allen. Yeah, they all beat him, and they showed some good boxing skills, but they weren’t overly impressive by any means. Whyte looked downright pedestrian with the way he struggled to hurt Allen. It’s lucky for Whyte that Allen didn’t show any real fire in that fight, because if he’d gone after Whyte hard, he would have had a real chance of scoring an upset. Whyte still hadn’t regained full yuse of his left hook in that fight, and he looked bad.
Allen looked good in defeating journeyman Jason Gaverne last year by a 4th round stoppage victory on March 26. Allen landed a lot of heavy shots in that fight to wear Gaverne down and force a stoppage. Allen’s other good wins have come against Tom Dallas, David Rowe and Lukasz Rusiewicz. Allen showed off his punching power in those fights. Where Allen looked bad was the non-effort he put in with his loss to Luis Ortiz last December in getting stopped in the 7th round. Allen looked scared of Ortiz, and he never really put up much of a fight before the match was halted.