Reports have emerged that Joe Joyce is in pole position to land a fight with WBC world heavyweight champion Tyson Fury, according to ESPN’s Mike Coppinger. Coppinger initially reported the news of Joyce’s position to secure a fight with Fury via his Twitter account.
Joyce, who is unbeaten in fifteen fights ( with fourteen KOs), provided he gets past Zhilei Zhang (24-1-1, 19KOs) on April 15th at the Copperbox Arena, London. Joyce will seek to defend his mandatory position with the WBO following his successful fight with Joseph Parker, whom he defeated via stoppage in September last year.
Fury (33-0-1, 24KOs) is seeking an opponent following the collapse of negotiations with unified world heavyweight champion, Oleksandr Usyk (20-0, 13KOs), failing to agree to terms regarding purse splits regarding a rematch clause. The contest was touted for April 29th at London’s Wembley Stadium, which would have been for the undisputed world heavyweight championship. Usyk, following the breakdown of the Fury talks likely to face WBA mandatory challenger Daniel Dubois.
Joyce recently spoke to Sky Sports regarding his ambitions of facing Fury if he successfully defeats Zhang next month.
“First, I’ve got to beat up Zhang before I can go and beat up Fury. I aim to have a destructive performance, beat him in style, and then push [for] the Fury fight. That’s the fight I want. Fury says he wants to fight me. In the meantime, I’m hoping that [Fury-Usyk] fight gets across the line. A big fight with Zhang, and hopefully, things will get ironed out, and I will fight Fury after.”
In recent interviews in recent months, Promoter Frank Warren has regularly spoken of his approval of two of his biggest promotional entities, Fury & Joyce, facing each other at some point soon in the future.
In October, before Fury’s dominant showing against Derek Chisora in December, Warren stated, “If Tyson comes through December 3rd [against Derek Chisora], then he’s going to fight Usyk, and then he may end up fighting Joe Joyce.”
