Joe Joyce knows he must beat Derek Chisora tonight if he is to have any chance of fighting for a world title.
Joyce appeared to be on the road to doing just that when he recorded wins over Daniel Dubois, Carlos Takam and Joseph Parker. But the Olympic silver medalist came unstuck against Zhilei Zhang last year and was stopped again by the Chinese star in their rematch five months later.
Joyce returned with a routine win over Kash Ali earlier this year and takes on veteran heavyweight Chisora knowing nothing but an impressive victory will suffice. Many had expected Chisora to be retired by now but the Londoner is ploughing on despite losing two fights to Joseph Parker and his trilogy fight with Tyson Fury. Here is everything you need to know about tonight's fights...
Joe Joyce and Derek Chisora will likely walk to the ring between 10.30pm and 11pm tonight. The heavyweight showdown is the main event and final fight of an 11-bout card which means the start time could be pushed back if the previous 10 fights take longer to complete than expected. There is one other 12-round fight as well as four which could go all 10 rounds.
Joe Joyce vs Derek Chisora
Dennis McCann vs Ionut Baluta
Ryan Garner vs Archie Sharp
Raven Chapman vs Yohana Sarabia
Moses Itauma vs Mariusz Wach
Sean Noakes vs Inder Bassi
Royston Barney-Smith vs Brian Barajas
Umar Khan vs Kaddour Hmiani
Brandun Lee vs Juan Anacona
Aadam Hamed vs Georgi Velichkov
Jermaine Dhliwayo vs Engel Gomez
Derek Chisora: "This will be my farewell dance party. The saddest day of my whole career. We were supposed to fight years ago but it never happened. Now I can go out on what I expect to be an unbelievable great fight in the O2 which I love."
Joe Joyce: "It's going to be a massive night of action at the O2, it's going to be explosive. We both have good styles. It's been a long-time building this fight, I never thought it would happen.
"When I knew he was an option I said 'let's go and give the fans what they want.'
"He brings war, excitement, unpredictability, you just need to look at the years. I bring the same energy, I throw punches and will be on you, I throw big shots and make it entertaining, when we collide it will be all-action.
"We will be in the centre, I'll be slugging it with him. I'm the juggernaut, I come forward, I'm heavy-handed.
"I predict a riot."
2024-07-27T06:44:10Z dg43tfdfdgfd