Joe Joyce suffered a defeat by a unanimous decision that on Saturday, Manchester on Saturday, a return to the ring in Manchester.
Fighting for the first time after defeating Derek Chisora in July 2024, a 39-year-old Brit lost a close struggle in which Hrgovic grew up in domination, earning ratings of 97-93, 96-95, 98-92 in his advantage of judges after ten rounds.
Joyce was originally scheduled to be against Dillian Whyte in the Sve-Britan affair, but the finger injury he suffered the latter saw that Hrgovic had entered the late notice.
The 32-year-old Croat did not fight the defeat to Daniel Dubois in June, in what was the first professional loss of his career after 18 fights until that moment. His record now reads 18-1 after defeating Joyce.
Asked if he was thinking about retiring after four defeats in the last five fights now, Joyce said, “Don’t you have fun? It was a good fight and it was difficult.
“He’s a great fighter, doing it for a long time. We can do it again.”
Hrgovic, meanwhile, said he had eyes set on a rematch with Dubois.
“This guy beat Dubois and I beat him so I want a rematch with Daniel Dubois,” he said.
“I’m really bad in my last fight, but we congratulate him and he did a great job in his last fight. Of course I want to bring him back one day.
“” Thank you Joe for this occasion. I went in in the short term, I wasn’t ready. I’m really happy to come back and look forward to big fighting in the future.
“This guy is like steel, I couldn’t believe he recorded all the shots. He’s a solid guy, a beast, very strong.”
The fight began explosively as Hrgovic landed several big shots across the top, but the conflict of the head left a Croat with a cut above the left eye.
Blood missed Hrgovic’s face and that gave Joyce confidence in the store, although his right eye swells in the fourth round.
Slugfest continued throughout the whole, and Joyce enjoyed success in the eighth. But at the end of the circle, Joyce was injured by a large left hip, and another attack in the ninth British knees, of which he never really recovered.
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2025-04-05 22:15:00
