Joe Joyce closed his critics and Daniel Dubois’ eye with a master class performance of bump and freaky resilience.
The 35-year-old Juggernaut went through 10 rounds of heavy shots from the 23-year-old powerhouse but broke his spirit and forced him back and forth after 30 minutes.
Watch Dubois vs Joyce Live & On-Demand on Kayo Sunday from 6:30 AM. New to Kayo? Get your free trial now and start streaming right away>
Despite his 2012 Olympic silver medal, Joyce became an underdog against the untested 15-0 prodigy. And he used all of his Team GB textbook skills and famous granite chin to force Dubois into submission with just his arrow-like left hand.
The 6ft 6in gentleman landed the British, Commonwealth and European titles and catapulted himself into the world title in 2021.
Dubois went straight into a thrust from Joyce at the start of round ten and dropped to one knee only to be counted by the referee. After the bruise defeat, he immediately went to the hospital, afraid of nerve damage or a broken orbital bone.
Lots of experts called Dubois quickly and branded the aspiring heavyweight star as a quitter. After bout BT Sport, fighter Carl Frampton and former champion David Haye were not happy with how the bout ended.
“I was very unhappy with the way he took a knee. He shot a shot in the eye, obviously it’s painful. I never like it when a fighter takes a knee. I’m sure Carl is the one I’d rather take off, ”said Haye.
Frampton was then asked for his interpretation of how the fight ended.
“We all like Dubois, I think he’s a nice guy but I think he stopped there,” said Frampton.
“I have to be brutally honest, let’s call a spade a spade, it struck a knee from a shot in the eye. His eye was a mess, it was closed, but I was going to be pulled out of the ring, I wasn’t going to take a knee. “
Dynamite Dan punished a weak blow with a left hook that woke Joyce. But the giant cut the Greenwich youngster off with a one-two.
Dubois started into the second with a threat, another piston-like left rocked Joyce’s head back and a right hand really shook him, forcing the 35-year-old to hold on and keep his balance.
Dubois pounded Joyce’s famous chin with another one-two, but the Fine Art Uni graduate wiped the attack off and hit with the thrust he’d sanded on the Team GB roster in Sheffield, where he’d played thousands of laps before the Olympic attacks graduated with Anthony Joshua.
Dubois had a 19-year-old sister and youth Olympic champion, Caroline, who screamed herself hoarse with encouragement and ordered an older brother to better slip Joyce’s thrust.
Two more straight power punches landed in Dubois’ fourth, but Joyce’s punch got him back under control and had the blind mom Marvel cheering and whipping on the opposite balcony when she heard her son pull away from a slow Start working back.
Dubois’ left eye closed around the fifth after 15 minutes at the end of Joyce’s left fist with white gloves.
But it was the younger, shorter man who dumped the booming blows who had the best chance of ending the night early.
Coach Martin Bowers used all his experience to work on Dubois’ closing left eye at the end of the sixth, and the battered peeper was now a useful target for Joyce.
This article originally appeared on The Sun and has been reproduced with permission.
.
