Frank Warren Says Joe Joyce Could Take Another Fight, Get Zhilei Zhang Rematch Later

Joe Joyce may not run it back with Zhilei Zhang right away, according to his promoter Frank Warren.

On Saturday night in London, Joyce suffered a sixth-round stoppage loss in a massive upset loss to Zhang. Joyce’s right eye was completely shut which forced the doctor to stop the fight

“It will be a big fight again but if it isn’t that fight, Joe will be in big fights, Zhilei will be in big fights,” Warren told talkSPORT Breakfast. “There’s so much activity at heavyweight and this is what it’s all about. We wanna see fights where you don’t know the outcome and that’s what we got on Saturday.”

After the fight, many wondered if Joe Joyce would run it back and trigger his rematch clause. Zhilei Zhang said he would be open to having an immediate rematch, but Frank Warren isn’t sure it happens.

Instead, Warren says Joyce may take another fight and get some wins and look to get the rematch at a later date.

“Zhilei is under contract with Queensberry for the foreseeable future and he’s got a great group of people we work with for him. If Joe wants that rematch, it’s his right to invoke it, it’s not ours. Our relationship with Zhilei will continue if he doesn’t, he’s got that decision to make,” Warren said. “He can do it immediately. He could take a fight and we could look to revisit it later in the year. At the moment, we’ve got to see how bad that eye is. We are going to have to assess it, he’s going to have to look at the performance and what went wrong but that decision on the rematch is down to him.”

With the loss, Joyce drops to 15-1 and lost his WBO interim heavyweight title. Before the setback, he beat Joseph Parker, Christian Hammer, Carlos Takam, and Daniel Dubois among others.

Do you think Joe Joyce should trigger his rematch clause?