Joe Joyce Believes He Would Have KO’d Jermaine Franklin Unlike Anthony Joshua

Joe Joyce thinks if he was fighting Jermaine Franklin on Saturday he would have KO’d him.

Franklin was facing Anthony Joshua in England in the biggest fight of his career and he came up short as he lost a decision in a lackluster performance. In the fight, Joyce thought they both fought badly and thinks if he was fighting Franklin he would have gotten a KO win.

“I’d knock both of them out with their performance the other night. I’d definitely force a stoppage on Franklin and Joshua’s ripe for the picking,” Joyce told Sky Sports. “Not great but [Joshua] got the job done. He went 12 rounds, I thought he would come with some more firepower and aim to push a stoppage but he wasn’t really putting shots together. He was [using] single shots and boxed kind of like he did in the [Andy] Ruiz second fight. So it was a little bit disappointing. He seems to have gone, in my opinion, a bit backwards. Hasn’t progressed. I think he lacked the combinations but I think Franklin was a tough guy.”

Joe Joyce is set to defend the WBO’s interim title against Zhang Zhilei on April 15. If he wins, he will be in line for a big fight but doesn’t think it would be against Anthony Joshua. Instead, he believes Joshua would stay away from him but is confident he would defeat Joshua.

“I’m a threat and he would prefer that [Whyte fight] until he’s got his mojo back,” Joyce said. I’d like to see him against Dillian Whyte, because I think Dillian Whyte’s in the same situation. He didn’t really look too great in the last fight. So it would be good to see who the better man is and obviously they’ve got past bad blood. I think the fans would get behind that fight. It would be a good fight.”

Do you think Joe Joyce would beat Anthony Joshua?