Joe Joyce vs. Zhilei Zhang fight prediction, odds, start time,

Undoubtedly, heavyweight’s “big three” are Tyson Fury, Oleksandr Usyk and Deontay Wilder. Sitting just behind those men is Joe Joyce, the former Olympic silver medalist who is undefeated as a professional. Joyce looks to creep closer to a shot at one of the division’s elite three when he faces Zhilei Zhang on Saturday in London (2 p.m. ET, ESPN+).

Joyce holds the WBO interim title, making him one of the mandatory challengers for unified champion Usyk. Unfortunately for Joyce, the WBA and IBF mandatories have priority over the WBO in the rotation. The WBA recently ordered Usyk next defend his titles against their secondary champion, Daniel Dubois.

Joyce holds a November 2020 knockout win over Dubois, a fight that saw Joyce’s jab shut Dubois’ eye before finally forcing him to voluntarily take a knee and wait out the referee’s 10-count. While Dubois has won four straight since that defeat, he is coming off a fight with Kevin Lerena where Lerena scored three first-round knockdowns.

Understanding the politics of boxing, Joyce’s path to a title shot is simple: keep winning. And he’s done nothing else as a professional, scoring 14 knockouts in 15 career victories.

There is also an outside chance Joyce could fight WBC champion Tyson Fury. Fury has referenced Joyce several times and both men are promoted by Frank Warren, removing many hurdles of potentially putting a fight together.

Zhang had followed a similar path as Joyce, turning professional after an amateur career in which he won an Olympic silver medal and rattled off 25 fights without suffering a loss.

Defeat finally came Zhang’s way in August 2022 when he lost a decision to Filip Hrgovic. Many observers felt Zhang deserved the win against Hrgovic despite Hrgovic coming into the bout as a clear favorite. In that way, Zhang’s first professional loss was not all that damaging to his career.

The biggest setback for Zhang is that…