Heavyweight championship boxing returns to the shores of the UK this weekend as Joe Joyce looks to avenge the only defeat of his professional career against China’s 2008 Olympic silver medalist Zhilei Zhang. 

Supporting the main event is an undercard packed full of future stars and potential fight-of-the-night contenders and we’ve picked out two fights and three fighters to watch out for before the big boys take centre stage.

Fights To Watch Out For

Pierce O’Leary vs Kane Gardner (WBC International Super-Lightweight Title)

By a distance the most competitive fight on the card aside from the main event, the undefeated hard-hitting Irishman Pierce O’Leary will be looking to go to 13-0 up against Manchester’s Kane Gardner.

O’Leary has started to build up a reputation for being a bit of a puncher of late with five stoppages from his last six fights with just one of those stoppages coming after the second round. Trained by Alan Smith & Eddie Lam, the 23-year-old has shown plenty already to suggest that he could be the next big star to come out of Ireland but he has certainly got his work cut out against Gardner this weekend. 

Undefeated in his first nine fights, Gardner suffered a shock defeat to late replacement Ben Fields in his 10th fight, a fighter he’d beaten two weeks previously, but then got back on track with three wins on the bounce before losing out to Tom Farrell in the Boxxer tournament. 

Since then though he has been faultless and he edged out Conah Walker in his last fight who went on to stop the highly-rated Cyrus Pattinson so the form line for Gardner is exceptionally good.

O’Leary is rightly so the favourite but expect Gardner to frustrate him and make the Irishman answer questions that he is yet to be asked. 

Ezra Taylor vs Joel McIntyre

A light-heavyweight contest to watch out for on the card sees the 6-0 Ezra Taylor take on the much more experienced 20-7 Joel McIntyre. 

Highly touted as one of the biggest prospects in an already stacked out weight division domestically, Taylor has breezed to 6-0 averaging just 3.5 rounds a fight having stopped four of his six opponents to date.

However, in McIntyre, he comes up against a somewhat of a stalwart on the domestic light-heavyweight scene in the past seven years. A former English champion, he has only lost to elite-level opposition including the likes of Lyndon Arthur & Shakan Pitters.

This is a massive step up for Taylor in just his seventh fight and despite three losses on the bounce, McIntyre will be looking at this as a massive opportunity to upset the odds and get himself back into the domestic title mix once again.

Fighters To Watch Out For

‘The Norfolk Nightmare’ Tommy Fletcher will be aiming to add to his growing list of highlight reel knockouts when he faces Alberto Tapia on Saturday night. Standing at 6’7”, Fletcher certainly stands out from the crowd in more ways than one and with his one-punch knockout power which he clearly possesses, he’s already starting to look like a star of the future. 

The seed has already been planted for what could turn out to be a classic domestic rivalry with fellow cruiserweight prospect Aloys Youmbi who also fights on the card this Saturday against the experienced Erik Nazaryan. Youmbi was a late replacement on debut when he narrowly lost out to Michal Soczynski but since then he’s picked up four knockout victories on the bounce and at 21 and 20, a fight with Fletcher is most certainly one that could get the juices of boxing fans flowing very nicely in the next couple of years.

Finally, the exciting heavyweight prospect Moses Itauma features once again as he takes on another tough journeyman in the form of Belgium’s Amine Boucetta. Itauma has recorded back-to-back points wins after two first-round KO’s in his first two fights and he still harbours dreams of becoming the youngest-ever heavyweight world champion so an early night at the office against Boucetta will only do him the world of good.