As Sinatra’s "My Way" echoed around London’s O2 Arena on Saturday, Derek Chisora saluted his fans. His body was covered in sweat, his face was lumpy and eyes battered into slits – but he had won.
He had outlasted Joe Joyce in a 10-round slugfest that was boxing at arguably its most brutal and barbaric. Both exhibited the type of courage you can only admire and the type of warrior heart that sets boxers apart from other athletes.
Those who are aware of their back catalogue of wars or who are squeamish would have been watching through their fingers, but those who love nothing more than a toe-to-toe brawl witnessed a Fight of the Year contender.
It was a raw, wild, free-swinging affair with scant regard paid to defense from either.
“London, I love you,” said Chisora afterwards.
The crowd serenaded him in response.
“I haven’t boxed in a year. Things were off a little bit. I was fit, but Joe is a good fighter. … I’m just happy that I’ve got loads of fans in London.”
“That was fantastic, I enjoyed that fight,” Joyce responded. “I thought it was close. That was a brilliant performance he gave. I’m happy to share the ring with him. What a legend.”
Then came Chisora’s punchline.
“It’s not my last fight. I’ve got two more.”
Chisora won by 97-92 and two cards of 96-94, but what a hard-fought, exhaustive contest; savage; vicious. Both went above and beyond the call of regular duty.
The “Woooooahh, Derek Chisora” songs rang out once Chisora’s ringwalk to The Eagles’ "Hotel California" had subsided and the opening round had bits of everything. There was clinching, Joyce trying to keep it long, Chisora trying to sweep forwards with hooks but then Joyce rattling him with a couple of left hooks.
Chisora scored with a right hand in the second, not the sort of shot that wiped out Carlos Takam a few years ago, but one to serve as a deterrent and in the third Chisora started as a southpaw but promptly changed back.
Chisora’s work made Joyce reverse at times, but when Joyce claimed Chisora he could march him back. They swapped left hooks near the bell and it had become apparent that the heavier firepower was being wielded by “The Juggernaut."
Chisora’s corner worked to reduce the swelling beneath his right eye before the fourth, and he was made to pay for swinging and missing a big left hook when Joyce nailed him with a right hand down the chute.
Chisora flashed over a lead left hook, but Joyce replied with a right and, moments later, he pounded a shot into Chisora’s side. Still, two Chisora left hooks buoyed his crowd and they began singing his name once more as he walked Joyce onto a hard right hand as the session closed.
The fifth began slowly, but Chisora spent parts of the session on the ropes, trying to find openings through the maze of white gloves that were coming his way, because Joyce was busy. Although Chisora landed some eye-catching single shots – notably the right hand – Joyce gulped them down and by the end of the session Chisora bled from the mouth and he looked exhausted, almost staggering to his stool.
Joyce could have made it easier for himself by boxing from range and using his height and reach advantages but he was making Chisora pay a hefty price for his successes. He cracked Joyce with another couple of big overhand rights near the end of the sixth, but Joyce didn’t blink.
The swelling under Chisora’s right eye was worsening, too. But Joyce couldn’t resist the fight and they traded in close through the seventh. Joyce landed an uppercut of note, but Chisora worked away at the body and, having distracted Joyce downstairs, he piled in several blows to the head.
It was a punishing fight, exactly the type of contest neither man needed but those who had paid to watch wanted.
With less than a minute left in the eighth, Joyce wobbled Chisora with a left hook, followed it in with another and Chisora hung tough for 40 seconds and it was looking grim for Chisora as the ninth opened.
Chisora was hurt again early in the next and perhaps only a big right with his back to the ropes from Chisora might have spared him the referee’s intervention. There was little left from Chisora but the bravery in his heart and the fumes his engine was running on and then, from nowhere, he slugged Joyce with a right hand, one that finally dumped Joyce in an astonishing late twist.
Peering through puffy eyes, Chisora tried to lull Joyce into the ropes and somehow they both survived the round.
They continued to drain one another through the 10th and final round. Chisora tried to conduct his crowd into one last rendition of the Chisora song and it reverberated around the O2. Chisora somehow sank in at least five big overhand rights in the closing seconds and Joyce somehow swallowed them all without so much as flinching.
It was pure savagery. Chisora, now 35-13 (23 KOs), landed hooks that started from the canvas and overhand rights that clipped the roof and Joyce (16-3, 15 KOs) ate them and plowed ahead. Chisora staggered and reeled around the ring looking on the brink of a stoppage in several rounds. You may as well have issued them with bats, neither was going anywhere.
It had been unmitigated chaos, not for the faint-hearted and not for those who want to consider the fighters and how it might affect them in their dotage.
“Two absolute true warriors. What a fight,” said promoter Frank Warren. “Just unbelievable. It takes two to make a great fight. That was epic.”
Warren later added: “I never thought this fight would go the distance. … It was a close fight. … That was a brutal fight, and those fights will, at the end of the day, catch up with you.”
