Undefeated contender for Usyk's belt sensationally loses by TKO to Chinese. Video.

Interim WBO world champion Joe Joyce (15-1, 14 KOs) suffered the first defeat of his career. The 37-year-old Briton lost to Chinese contender Zhilei Zhang (25-1-1, 20 KOs) at the Copper Box Arena in London.

The fight started in an equal positional struggle, where both fighters tried to create angles of attack and tested each other's defences with powerful jabs. The left-hander from China checked his opponent several times with left straight punches, which clearly came as a surprise to Joyce.

In the second round, one of those punches landed squarely in the favourite's face, breaking his nose. After a short pause in the third three minutes, the Chinese challenger seized the initiative again, demonstrating excellent efficiency. Almost every shot he threw from the left hit the target.

It was obvious that the British fighter was very uncomfortable fighting such an opponent, he often missed and made mistakes with manoeuvres. Joyce tried to regain the advantage by moving into close combat, but his unaccented strikes did not pose much danger to Zhilei.

By the sixth round, Joe's face had turned into a solid bruise and the doctor, after examining him, advised the judge to stop the fight.

As reported by OBOZREVATEL, last September Joyce (15-0, 14 KOs) defeated New Zealander Joseph Parker (30-3, 21 KOs) in a spectacular fashion and won the WBO interim champion's belt, becoming a contender for a fight with Usyk.

Usyk (20-0, 13 KOs) is scheduled to fight his next fight against the British Daniel Dubois (19-1, 18 KOs), who is a contender for the World Boxing Association (WBA) championship belt.

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