BOXING fans were open-mouthed after Joe Joyce was left shut-eyed – as one judge had the battered, beaten Brit LEADING Zhilei Zhang.
Viewers want the “shameful” and crazy” scorecard “investigated” after outclassed Joyce was finally pulled out in round six, with his right eye horribly swollen and vision limited.
Zhang’s one-sided win means the Chinese heavyweight now has the WBO’s interim belt, making him their mandatory challenger for Oleksandr Usyk’s WBA, IBF & WBO world titles.
One fan posted: “Joyce up by 1 on a judge’s scorecard. Never in a million years.”
Another wrote: “Whichever judge has Joyce up on the scorecard should probably be investigated.”
And a third summed up the consensus on social media with this message: “One judge had Joyce up on the cards! Crazy. Thankfully Zhang pressed for the stoppage. Fully deserved.”
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A fourth found the verdict too amusing to take seriously as he said: “Loooool. I love boxing.”
Even Joyce admitted: “I am disappointed with my performance. I could not get out of the way of his shots.”
Both his eyes were bloodied and bruised after he survived, in particular, an astonishing pounding in round two.
Four rounds later, the referee stopped the contest on the advice of a doctor.
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Fans praised Zhang, 39, as much as they berated the performance of Joyce and at least one of the judges.
One boxing enthusiast said of the pummelled Putney 37-year-old: “Shouldn’t really be much of a surprise. You can’t use your face as a form of defence at a high level.”
And amid all the disbelief over the controversial scorecard, another observer wrote: “Zhang was superb. Rocked Joyce so many times – who just gets caught so much.”
A similar opinion was: “Don’t let the stoppage take anything away from Zhang. He was phenomenal & Joyce was horrific.”
Source: Boxing - thesun.co.uk
