A new story from THE FIGHT with Teddy Atlas
Automatic TRANSCRIPT
39 years old. And Joyce is 38 years old, no spring chicken. See the one of them. And Zhang's been a pro already for 9 years. Before we get into, let me just give you a little setup and then we'll just jump right into it. Zhang two time Olympic boxer. You've called a lot of his fights. I saw the clip you put up on Twitter where, you know, you pointed this out, you've been pointing this off for years, but you know, a lot of times these fighters get to like 15, 16, 20 and oh. But who have they fought? And in some cases in Zhang's case, he clearly fought someone and I'm not trying to be funny. They might as well grab the guy out of the audience. He took a shot to the gloves and is shot to the shoulder and just went down like he got hit with a sniper rifle from the stands. Knockout for Zhang. And like you've always pointed out, it's not a really a way to test the guy to see where he's really at. Good or bad, but in jenks case, maybe he's just been being fed cannon fodder because against Joe Joyce, he looked like a world leader. He Joe Joyce had no answer for a straight left down the middle. It felt like Zhang could hit him with it whenever he wanted. He could have hit him in between rounds with it. I mean, Joyce's eye was swollen. He looked like he went, he got assaulted by 20 people. I didn't see this coming. I thought Joe Joyce was on a fast track to challenge for a title after that fight. I mean, Joe Joyce looked like a different fighter to me and I'm curious to hear from your perspective as it was it just because he fought a southwell. By the way, he's been in training camp for at least 8 weeks. He knows he's fighting a big 285 pound heavyweight with a straight left. It was like right down the middle here it comes. He might as well have been had a frigging siren and flashing lights on it when it was coming down the middle, but yeah, I think everyone was shocked. I think Zhang was maybe like a ten, 12 to one underdog and my God. He beat the brakes off of Joyce for the entire fight. What do you think and where do you think Joyce goes from here? And what do you think is next for Zhang? Well, first off, I didn't call a lot of sanctifies. I quote his first pro fight on ESPN four round that there was a former didn't matter wasn't going to pass 17 seconds because the guy was a professional dive of from the Olympics, and he happened to show up with a bathing suit on. And in a boxing ring. And he got like a 9 9 9 squaw for his dive against Zhang, if you haven't seen the clip, go look at it, that Ken was alluding to that I put up there of his first fight. It did look like a dive. I mean, he could have that opponent could have, I think his name was Tate. Could have opened up a school for professional floppies. You know, you want to learn how to do a flop. Go to his school, hit teach out into a flop. But at the end of the day, Joyce, I caught his Olympic fights. I'm talking about Zhang stayed has been pro 9 years, was the extraordinary. He finally gets a big fight while he had one before this he lost the decision. I thought he wanted actually. He lost a decision before this. But this is a big fight. He gets the win. He's been prone 9 years. He didn't turn probe to his 30 partly because he comes from communist China and also because he went into two Olympics being that he came from communist China. They don't have professional boxing. They started having it. They started doing some shows over there. Arab got involved with one of their gold medalists from one of the Olympics. They started doing some shows, but a lot of the communist countries back in the day the Soviet Union amongst them Cuba still to this day, their fighters quite often, it's not an unusual for them to fight to Olympics. You know, into their late 20s, even at 30, so it's still fighting average because they don't have professional boxing over their countries. They have to escape like Cuba, they would escape, they come over here to win world titles to fight for world titles. Have the opportunity to come to this great, great, great, great country. And get that opportunity. So Zhang didn't turn pro tools 30 he's 39 now. Man, again, long, long time. Before you fight the big fight in your career. Choice is 38 years old. Also, footnote Olympics. Silver medalist. Both of them with silver medalists actually zang fought in two Olympics, one of them he got knocked out in the finals who won the silver medal choice who also won a silver medal in his separate Olympics at a different time. Joyce to me and he was always what he is. You know, he's the slowest and ice wagon going uphill. You know, he and ice wagon. That's a good one. You know, he's a ponderous guy. And he's a good puncher, tough as nails. Good Chen. You know, gets insulted if you miss him for the most part. And he was beaten guys. You know, they were picking the right, but he beat me, he beat a good fighter and Joe Parker, you know? And a good box of good fighter experience guy. I'm going to go out there on a limb and tell you something that nobody touched on and everyone has a different sort of chronological time clock as to when they get old. I always talk about fighters get old and you got to judge from chronic logically in a different way. Where they get all partly because of how many punches they've got hit with. Not just only chronologically, not only by the number, the year that they were born. And the number that now registers is their birthday. But as their birthday, I think it got old. Now, listen, again, he's that slow guy. He's easy to hate. He's a good punch. He was always relentless. He wasn't that relentless. He was even slower than usual. I just felt I'm taking nothing away from Zack. I just felt that, listen, I know the other guys are year older. So what? Everybody has a different time clock. I look at George Foreman. There's a movie coming out about him. The great man, you know, because he didn't get old. He didn't get old like other people get old. He won a world title when he was 45. You know, odds he more, the great old man goes. Some of these fighters take Jersey Joe Walcott. As a Charles, some of them just did it later in their careers. They were different genetically. They were made up differently. But Joyce, for all the things that are still consistently the same, as far as his style, his abilities, you know, his