Joe Joyce STOPS Daniel Dubois to win their heavyweight battle of Britain

In the hushed cloisters of Church House and under the shadow of Westminster Abbey two giants came to fight in perhaps the most sacred boxing venue yet.

Had Dubois and Joyce found time to glance up at the domed pantheon overhead they could have read around that ceiling the Greek key promising that ‘Christ Would Lend Radiance To Them That Endured In The Heat Of The Conflict.’

Never mind the grammar, it was a spiritual sentiment in a hall of splendour.

Dubois suffered a bad eye injury and was unable to get up after being put down by a jab

Joyce celebrated with his trademark summersault with a world title shot now on the horizon

Would our warriors live up to such noble exhortation.

Joy Joyce took command of the world heavyweight championship starship from Daniel Dubois as the hottest hope on this planet fizzled out in a near-empty church hall.

Daniel kept exploding his dynamite for nine rounds but when the Joe juggernaut withstood the blastings and still came rolling out for the tenth Dubois kneeled meekly before him and allowed himself to be counted out,

Whether he was unsighted by a viciously swollen left eye or suddenly felt bewildered by Joyce’s refusal to capitulate when behind in the fight only Dubois could answer,

He tried to excuse himself, saying: ‘He caught me with another jab to the eye. I couldardly see out of it. I can’t explain it. I’m a tough guy and I will come again.’

Joyce attested to the Dynamite power he had taken but it is he who prevailed to become the new Brietish Commonwealth and European champion.

It had been a fight worthy of those but the end came as a sad anticliamax.

We had every expectation.

If too soon to be a match made in heaven, this was certainly the most fervently anticipated British heavyweight title fight this century so far. 

Joyce used his reach advantage to good affect by establishing his jab early on in the fight

Dubois responded in the second round and landed a solid right hand flush on Joyce’s chin

Dubois’ left eye began to swell badly in the middle rounds as Joyce found a home for his jabs

The Olympian Joyce seething to right the wrong of his gold medal loss to Tony Yoka in the controversial final of Rio 2016.

The prodigiously menacing Dubois trampling all before him on his apparent ascent towards the world championship.

Vast amateur experience pitted against the precocious venom of a roaring young lion.

Both undefeated. Juggernaut Joe versus Dynamite Dubois.

All watched over by the Good Lord .

The first bell chimed.

Neither looked in a mood to disappoint. Dubois went a’hunting. Joyce a’jabbing and his straight lefts edged the first.

Dubois took a knee in tenth after another jab to his left eye and was unable to beat the count

The victory saw Joyce claimed the British and Commonwealth heavyweight titles

Then Dubois opened up, rocking Joyce with lefts and rights to the head, leaving him clinging on to survive the second.

Joyce survived an opening onslaught to the third, got his jab working again but took more heavy rights. Joe jabbed the fourth but Daniel battered him in the fifth. Joyce looks to be tiring but Dubois has a swelling by the left eye.

Can Joyce take a punch. Plenty of them. The rounds may be slipping away but not his chin or his heart. He rallied to claw back what appeared to be a Dunois lead in a couple of middle rounds.

The pre-conceived wisdom was Dubois early or Joyce late. There hints of the ninth and then uproar in the tenth as Dubois suddenly took a knee in the middle of the ring without taking a punch. He only half-rose unsteadily, leaving referee Ian john Lewis no option but to count him out.

Dubois regained his feet in time to watch mournfully as a joyful Joyce performed the trademark athletic summersault of his amateur days.