Joe Joyce displayed one of the changes Friday afternoon that he made while preparing for his rematch with Zhilei Zhang.

London’s Joyce came in a whopping 25.2 pounds heavier for their rematch than he weighed for their first fight five months ago. The 6-foot-6 Joyce stepped on the British Boxing Board of Control’s scale at a career-high 281.2 pounds.

The former WBO interim heavyweight champion officially weighed 256 pounds for their first fight, which Joyce (15-1, 14 KOs) lost by sixth-round technical knockout April 15 at Copper Box Arena in London. The 2016 Olympic silver medalist’s previous high for a professional fight was 271¼ pounds for his 11th-round knockout of Joseph Parker last September 24 at AO Arena in Manchester, England.

China’s Zhang officially weighed a career-high 287 pounds Friday, nine more than the 278 pounds that the 6-foot-6 Chinese southpaw weighed for his upset victory versus Joyce. The 278 pounds he weighed for his victories over Joyce and Andrii Rudenko in November 2019 were the previous highs for Zhang (25-1-1, 20 KOs)

Zhang, 40, and Joyce, 38, will go at it again Saturday night at OVO Arena Wembley in London.

TNT Sports will televise their 12-round rematch as the main event of a multi-bout broadcast in the United Kingdom and Ireland (7 p.m. BST). ESPN+ will stream it as the headliner of a two-fight show in the United States (5 p.m. EDT; 2 p.m. PDT).

Joyce will attempt to avenge a loss that was caused by severe swelling around his right eye. Zhang continually landed left hands to the right side of Joyce’s damaged face in that bout, which led to a British Boxing Board of Control doctor recommending that referee Howard Foster halt the action.

English judge Phil Edwards had Joyce ahead, 48-47, entering the sixth round. Two American judges – Wisconsin’s Mike Fitzgerald and Florida’s Efrain Lebron – had Zhang in front by the same score, 48-47, through five rounds.

South Africa’s Deon Dwarte, China’s Mark Leong and England’s Marcus McDonnell are the three judges who’ve been assigned to score their rematch. England’s Steve Gray will be the referee Saturday night.

The Zhang-Joyce winner will be the mandatory challenger for one of Oleksandr Usyk’s titles, but behind the IBF’s Filip Hrgovic in the sanctioning bodies’ rotation for Usyk’s mandated defenses.

Before Zhang and Joyce weighed in Friday, light heavyweight contender Anthony Yarde came in at 177.9 pounds for his 10-round fight against Jorge Silva, who weighed 178.

Yarde (23-3, 22 KOs), of Ilford, England, and Silva (22-8, 12 KOs), a late replacement from Matosinhos, Portugal, will meet in the co-featured bout before Zhang faces Joyce again. Yarde will fight for the first time since his eighth-round TKO loss to IBF/WBC/WBO 175-pound champ Artur Beterbiev (19-0, 19 KOs) on January 28 at OVO Arena Wembley.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.