Daniel Dubois, Joe Joyce Set For Interim-Bouts Ahead of October Fight
Heavyweight rivals Daniel Dubois and Joe Joyce will both headline behind-closed-doors shows ahead of their planned clash in October.
The London duo will both face German opposition as part of Frank W’s Queensberry Promotions summer series of shows to be screened on BT Sport from the channel’s studios on East London.
Joyce will face Michael Wallisch, from Munich, on July 25. The 34-year-old, who is 6ft 5½in tall, won his first 19 fights as a professional, but has lost three of his past four, being stopped by Christian Hammer, Efe Ajagba and Tony Yoka, who controversially beat Joyce in the Olympic final in 2016.
Dubois, the British and Commonwealth champion, will take on unbeaten two-time Olympic Erik Pfeifer.
The Russian-born 33-year-old has only had seven fights as a professional. He twice won bronze medal at the World Amateur Championships, in 2011, when he lost his semi-final to Anthony Joshua, and 2013. He boxed at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics and boxed four seasons in the World Series Boxing, where he twice beat Yoka.
In total, Queensberry will be staging five behind-closed-doors shows, beginning this Friday when Brad Foster puts his British and Commonwealth super-bantamweight titles against James Beech Jr. Dubois-Pfeifer will be the final show.
None of the cards will clash with Eddie Hearn’s Fight Camp shows, which will be screened in the UK on Sky and run on Saturday nights from August 1 until August 22.
Dubois and Joyce are set to clash on October 24 at the O2 Arena, London, providing the lockdown has sufficiently lifted to allow crowds back to events by then.
They had originally been due to meet in April and then July, before the coronavirus pandemic put paid to that.
While Dubois boxed in December, Joyce has not been in action since beating Bryant Jennings in July last year, having also seen a proposed fight with Marco Huck in January fall through.
It was the lengthy absence that led to Joyce’s team to push for a warm-up fight before agreeing to the October date.
