Maybe it was a robbery in Rio which finally pushed the International Olympic Committee (IOC) into thinking that boxing’s days were numbered on the Games programme.

With Olympic boxing, if not quite under threat then certainly the subject of serious scrutiny, it was heartening to hear the 35-year-old Rio super heavyweight silver medallist Joe Joyce explaining just how valuable his experience in amateur boxing, and particularly the Games, contributed to his shock conquest of the young British, Commonwealth and European champion Daniel Dubois at the weekend.

Not since Muhammad Ali and George Foreman Rumbled in the Jungle 46 years ago, or even since James J. Corbett knocked out Joe Choynski in the 27th round of a world heavyweight title slugfest on board a barge moored in San Francisco Bay in 1889, has there been a more unlikely setting for big fight than the one for this Saturday (November 28) night's blockbuster between Daniel Dubois and Olympic silver medallist Joe Joyce.

"It must feel like they are boxing in a space ship," David Haye observed as boxing punched its way out of the pandemic last week, staging a comeback in the confines of the BT studio in London’s Olympic Park.

I am among the many who believe that 22-year-old Daniel Dubois is the best young prospect in boxing today and that the sledgehammer slugger from Greenwich is the man who eventually will take over from Tyson Fury or Anthony Joshua and keep the Union Jack flying high over the world heavyweight boxing championship.

Olympic silver medallist Joe Joyce is set to turn over to boxing’s professional ranks after signing a deal with the promotional company partly headed by former world heavyweight champion David Haye.

Joe Joyce is a name that rolls easily off the tongue and it is still set to be a household one, despite him failing to emulate his pugilistic pal Anthony Joshua and win the Olympic super heavyweight gold medal in Rio de Janeiro. 

London 2012 gold medallists Nicola Adams and Katie Taylor took the first step towards defending their titles at Rio 2016 as they both won their opening bouts at the International Boxing Association (AIBA) European Olympic Qualification Event at the Mustafa Dağıstanlı Spor Salonu in Samsun in Turkey.

A new programme linked to World Series of Boxing (WSB) team the British Lionhearts has been launched here today, aimed at increasing participation in the sport in London.

A decision to allow male boxers to compete without headguards at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro for the first time in 36 years has been hailed as "great achievement" by International Boxing Association President C K Wu.

Anthony Joshua, the new British and Commonwealth heavyweight champion, says his successor in the GB team, big Joe Joyce, can replicate his own 2012 triumph by winning gold in the Rio Olympics this summer.

Ireland’s first-ever male world champion Michael Conlan is one of two International Boxing Association (AIBA) fighters who will be doing their bit for the Movember charity movement throughout next month.