Joyce: Fight with Dubois is ‘man vs boy’

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The heavyweights are set to clash on April 11.

With Daniel Dubois and Joe Joyce set to meet in an April 11 showdown that has a lot of people excited already, the promotion has of course begun, and there was a little shovey-shovey at their presser today.

The shoving stuff is par for the course, whatever, we see it all the time. Even the YouTube lads put on that little show.

But something Joyce has said may stick with people. The 34-year-old Joyce, who won silver at the 2016 Olympics as a super heavyweight, calls the fight with the 22-year-old Dubois “man vs boy”:

Joyce (10-0, 9 KO) and Dubois (14-0, 13 KO) have, as we said earlier, similar levels of pro experience on paper. But Joyce has the vaunted MAN STRENGTH!!!!!! that boxing commentators (at least the American ones) are so fond of yelling about on the TV, and he’s the fighter who has developed to his fullest potential, in all likelihood.

Dubois, meanwhile, is still a young guy, still putting it together, and while he’s picked up buzz, Joyce may well prove a step too far at this point. He’s absolutely a massive step up from the likes of Ebenezer Tetteh and Kyotaro Fujimoto, Dubois’ last two totally overmatched, carefully-chosen opponents.

This is one of those fights actually fun to talk about. There is some unknown here. We’ll learn a lot more about both guys, and they’re both taking a legitimate career risk to make a fight people want to see. It’s rare we get to be fully positive about something with boxing, so this is nice.