Joyce vs Zhang 2 LIVE: Fight result after devastating knockout tonight

The main card is under way! Royston Barney-Smith takes on Engel Gomez!

And just now, in the final fight before the undercard proper, Ezra Taylor snatched a late stoppage win over Joel McIntyre!

Tommy Fletcher secured a fourth-round win against Alberto Tapia not long ago. Here’s the finish:

Earlier tonight, Sean Noakes was victorious against Lukasz Barabasz on points. Here’s a snippet from that bout:

Subject to changes...

Zhilei Zhang (C) vs Joe Joyce 2 (WBO interim heavyweight title)

Pierce O’Leary (C) vs Kane Gardner (WBC international super-lightweight)

Anthony Yarde vs Jorge Silva (light-heavyweight)

Sam Noakes vs Carlos Perez (lightweight)

Zach Parker vs Khalid Graidia (super-middleweight)

Royston Barney-Smith vs Engel Gomez (super-featherweight)

Moses Itauma vs Amine Boucetta (heavyweight)

Aloys Youmbi vs Erik Nazaryan (cruiserweight)

Ezra Taylor def. Joel McIntyre via eighth-round TKO (2:56)

Tommy Fletcher def. Alberto Tapia via fourth-round TKO (1:31)

Sean Noakes def. Lukasz Barabasz via decision (59-54)

For someone who is such a monolith of a man, there are a surprising number of layers to Joe Joyce. At certain points during our half-hour conversation, Joe Joyce the heavyweight boxer is speaking; at others, it’s Joe Joyce the fine-art student, the swimming instructor, the cheerleader, or the trumpet player.

“When I was a swimming and diving teacher, it was a really great feeling to have someone who was really afraid of the water and to get their head under the water – or have them swimming three, four strokes by the end,” the Londoner tells The Independent. “To have people who have spent their life not being able to swim, and to get them to even put their head under the water in their late sixties and seventies, that’s something I found really rewarding.

“I also played trumpet for quite a few years, I was in the choir at school. I could do a little bit of percussion; I used to go on music holidays. My little brother is the more musical one; he’s at uni doing something musical and was in the Brit School; he was also in Thriller Live. My dad’s an art teacher, he restores antique mirror frames, and my mum was into pottery; she does a series of African-esque heads. Growing up, music and sport was encouraged, as was art. I did my first oil painting when I was seven years old.

“It would be nice to make more art and create more things, be more creative than the destructive boxing side.”

Exclusive interview with Joyce – first published in October 2022:

The earliest undercard fights are under way as we speak. The main card is expected to begin at 7.30pm BST (11.30am PT, 1.30pm CT, 2.30pm ET), with ring walks for the main event due at around 10.30pm BST (2.30pm PT, 4.30pm CT, 5.30pm ET).

In the UK, the event will air live on TNT Sports (formerly BT Sport) and Discovery+. In the US, ESPN+ will stream the action live.

If you’re travelling abroad and want to watch the event, you might need a VPN to unblock your streaming app. Our VPN round-up is here to help and includes deals on VPNs in the market. Viewers using a VPN need to make sure that they comply with any local regulations where they are and also with the terms of their service provider.

We may earn commission from some of the links in this article, but we never allow this to influence our content. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.

Back in April, Zhilei Zhang was a boxing dreamer of 39 when he closed Joe Joyce’s right eye and stopped him in six rounds.

It was one of boxing’s genuine shocks and tonight, at the old Wembley Arena, they will have a rematch for the right to move just a bit closer to a heavyweight title fight. If Joyce, as expected, had won the first fight, he would have probably fought Oleksandr Usyk a few weeks ago.

Zhang has been marketed as the eating, fighting, man-mountain from China. In April, he was the ideal, but risky, warm-up for Joyce. It was thought that Zhang, who had lost just once in 26 fights, was slow, easy to hit and easy to solve and would be ideal for Joyce to knock out in the last few rounds. Nice plan, wrong man.

Zhang, now 40, fought a smart fight, avoided Joyce’s jabs and straight rights, and connected again and again with his left hand. Zhang is a far trickier southpaw than anybody cared to realise, and he is so much faster than anybody wanted to believe. The brutal truth is that Zhang took Joyce apart; the official end was because Joyce’s right eye was closed, but that is a convenient little fact. Zhang was in total control.

“I took a risk,” Joyce said. “I could have just taken an easy fight and waited for a title fight.” Joyce is right, and he had taken other risks in his previous 15 fights. There is a case, a strong case, that no modern heavyweight has been pushed so hard and so quickly. Joyce has been a delight, beating former champions and challengers, and now he is in the fight of his life to salvage his short career.

Full main-event preview:

Joe Joyce and Zhilei Zhang will go head to head in London tonight, five months after the Chinese heavyweight beat the Briton via TKO.

When Joyce and Zhang clashed in April, also in the English capital, “Big Bang” emerged victorious in Round 6, having forced a stoppage by damaging Joyce’s eye to the point of closure. In doing so, Zhang, 40, took the WBO interim title from the “Juggernaut”, who is out for revenge this evening.

Joyce, who turned 38 this week, was unbeaten prior to his loss to Zhang, and he is aiming to get back to winning ways while reclaiming his title here. If he can do so, the Olympic silver medalist may even set up a bout with Oleksandr Usyk, who holds the main WBO belt – as well as the WBA, IBF and IBO titles.