Derek Chisora and Joe Joyce both answer retirement question after heavyweight thriller

Derek Chisora and Joe Joyce both insisted that they had no plans to retire from boxing after their all-British heavyweight war on Saturday night.

Chisora floored Joyce in the ninth round en route to a deserved unanimous decision victory that came after a thrilling 10-round contest at London’s O2 Arena.

‘Del Boy’ had appeared to strongly hint during the week that he would retire regardless of the result against Joyce, though has now clarified that his repeated references to an emotional ‘farewell dance’ related to his final appearance at the venue in question rather than his career itself.

Instead, a buoyant Chisora now plans to fight twice more as he bids to reach the 50 mark as a professional, starting in Manchester in December, the same month in which he will celebrate turning 41.

“It’s not my last fight, I’ve got two more,” Chisora said in the ring after notching his 35th victory as a professional in front of an adoring crowd in what was his first fight for almost a full year.

“This is not my last fight. It’s my last fight in the O2 Arena. Now I go to Manchester, end of the year in December.”

The retirement question will also surely now loom large for Joyce, who needed to produce an emphatic victory on Saturday night if he was to have any hope of getting back into the world title picture.

Instead, the 39-year-old suffered a disastrous third loss in the last four fights that will surely end any possibility of any further involvement at the top level of boxing’s blue riband division, having lost his WBO interim title and undefeated record with a pair of crushing knockout defeats by Zhilei Zhang in 2023.

Asked straight after the fight what was next for him, Joyce, who laboured to an unconvincing late stoppage win against Kash Ali on his return in March, said: “I don’t know if I’m done yet.”

He asked the crowd: “Do you want to see more of me?”

After resounding cheers, Joyce then said: “Well, there you go man. I’m still pretty fresh.”

Asked about the future of Joyce, promoter Frank Warren said: “We’ll sit down and talk with them and see where we go.

“That was a brutal fight and those fights do at the end of the day catch up with you. We’ve got to think about it, for both of them. But I love them both.”

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