{"id":777487,"date":"2026-07-03T11:01:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T11:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/777487\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T11:01:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T11:01:10","slug":"joyce-in-line-to-face-gassiev-following-yoka-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/777487\/","title":{"rendered":"Joyce in line to face Gassiev following Yoka injury"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gassiev, who currently holds the WBA\u2019s secondary title, was scheduled to face Frenchman Yoka (15-3, 12 KOs) on July 11 at VTB Arena.<\/p>\n

But the show\u2019s IBA Pro organizers are now on the hunt for a new main event opponent after Yoka injured his back during training camp.<\/p>\n

There is still a chance that the whole event will be rescheduled, but The Ring has learned that alternative opponents for Gassiev are being evaluated first.<\/p>\n

And the most likely option is 40-year-old British heavyweight Joyce, who is already preparing to fight on the undercard. Joyce (16-4, 15 KOs) is currently scheduled to face undefeated Artem Suslenkov (14-0, 9 KOs) in a 10-round fight, but he could be upgraded to the main event. Meanwhile, a new opponent would also be arranged for Suslenkov.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Juggernaut\u201d Joyce has not boxed since he lost on points to Filip Hrgovic<\/a> on April 5 of last year in Manchester. The setback against the Croatian was the fourth in five fights for Joyce, a former interim world heavyweight champion.<\/p>\n

But despite his miserable run of form, he could now be handed the chance to revive his career against 32-year-old Gassiev (33-2, 26 KOs), who has held the WBA “regular” belt since he stopped Kubrat Pulev on December 12 in Dubai.<\/p>\n

There is also a realistic chance that any fight with Gassiev could be for the full WBA heavyweight title given that it was vacated by Oleksandr Usyk last week.<\/p>\n

Gassiev is expected to be elevated to full champion imminently, making any fight on July 11 the first defense of his new belt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gassiev, who currently holds the WBA\u2019s secondary title, was scheduled to face Frenchman Yoka (15-3, 12 KOs) on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":777488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[72640,703,184736,711,49,48,1855,44,82,1134],"class_list":["post-777487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-object-object","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-articles","tag-boxing-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-heavyweight","tag-news","tag-sports","tag-the-ring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/777488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}