(This comment from David Payne in the UK on Joe Joyce’s Manchester KO win over Joseph Parker on Saturday night originally appeared on his site: www.boxingwriter.co.uk)
The weekend grudgingly succumbs to a Monday of complaints, kids climbing into the backseats, and the late-September drizzle teasing those too lazy to mow the lawn the day before. In the silence that follows, thoughts, ideas compete, ebb and flow for those of us who struggle with obligation, duty two that time and loneliness bring.
Boxing wobbles to frame between the unwashed breakfast pots, the dogs that need exercise, and the bill that needs to be paid. Is not always that way. Golovkin and Canelo III went back and forth leaving little fat to chew on Monday, despite the pair’s generational greatness.
A tired episode in a great rivalry. Money loaded, but inferior, Godfather III if you will. Years too late.
Into the stream of their meeting entered Shakur Stevenson, the next, the next Pretty Boy. He has predecessors like he would be Floyd’s successor and his Uber-wealth. 25 years and 22 ounces over the limit. He won. He cemented his status. But losing weight brought more headlines than the fight. The nature of modern media. Words, failure, toxicity create more trail than quality, preparation, success.
And so he fell to heavyweights from Manchester, England. The two good guys named Joe, Joyce and Parker, met at a crossroads. Was this the top of Joyce’s arc or could she continue her rise against Parker, a man who had already flown with Joshua and Ruiz? Expectations had been modest. Joyce, huge, heavy but effective. Parker, stronger, sharper and more seasoned.
They both stood out. And their hard-hitting encounter revealed a new player at the top of the division.
The fight exceeded its billing despite providing no surprises in form or style. Parker moved laterally a little less than expected, provoked the bigger man forward, hit a combination on the counter. Joyce deployed her usual strategy of walking down to his prey. High performance, landing and depriving Parker of room to breathe. It is a peculiar reality that both strategies were working. Joyce was making Parker work from bell to bell; the 30-year-old had been breathing heavily from the third round. Despite being ahead because he was landing thunderous right hands and almost every power shot he threw.
It’s the sight of Joyce absorbing a score or so of those Parker right hands flush to the chin and not even registering the impact with a blink that shone brightest this morning. Parker is not Joe Louis or Mike Tyson. But he has good technique in his right hand, throws it with respectable hand speed and weighed 255 pounds in his career for this fight. One of the most used idioms in boxing is, “once you get to heavyweight, every punch can be a knockout,” or a variant of it. Joe Joyce spent Saturday night challenging this and in doing so broke Parker’s heart and ultimately his resistance.
There have been those who have been similarly beaten. A lot of heavyweights have ‘held back’ punches from punchers like Parker, and bigger knockout artists than him as well. But usually they survive by evasion, clinch, deception, and retreat. Anything to let the moment pass, to allow the nervous system to reset.
Joe Joyce? He just stepped up and threw more jabs, left hooks and right hands. In the same way, of his contemporaries, Tyson Fury has altered the narrative about men his size being mobile, Joyce has redefined what is possible in his own career. Not only because he shoots as well as any heavyweight in recent memory, because he can fight, too, but because he knows it’s nearly impossible to deter or derail him with power or work rate. There is a growing irresistibility to him despite his heavy hand speed and the inherent simplicity of his style. No one will like the prospect of addressing it.
Fury, Wilder, Joshua… I don’t remember a single mention of Joe Joyce. Now, next week, or later. His name never enters her interviews and his endless media outpourings.
After Saturday, it is clear to see why. When Joyce’s challenge arrives, they may remember that they have dogs to walk and pots to wash.
