Joe Joyce wins TKO-4 over Christian Hammer on fourth round body shots

The Fourth of July weekend features a light boxing schedule, but Saturday does bring a heavyweight title bout. Joe Joyce and Christian Hammer square off on ESPN+ with Joyce’s WBC Silver and WBO International titles on the line. The main event is expected to get going between 5 and 6 p.m. ET.

The bout features secondary titles and a fighter in Joyce who is 13-0 but also 36 years old. If Joyce can handle his business as a heavy favorite, he might get a crack at one of the top four or five heavyweights, but he remains a fringe champion.

Joyce is -4000 to win at DraftKings Sportsbook while Hammer is +1100. The favored outcome is a Joyce KO, TKO, or DQ at -550. A Joyce decision follows at +370, a Hammer stoppage is +1800, and a Hammer decision is +2500.

We’ll be providing round-by-round scoring as the bout progresses until we have a winner. Follow along below!

Joe Joyce vs. Christian Hammer round-by-round results

Round 1: Hammer 10-9

Joyce looked like he would do the most work and secure the round, but Hammer landed the two biggest blows by far. It should be enough to swing the round in his direction.

Round 2: Joyce 10-9 (19-19)

This wasn’t a big round for either fighter and Joyce gets the edge for just being a little more busy. Both fighters are fairly slow with their punches so it feels like a slow bout.

Round 3: Joyce 10-8 (Joyce 29-27)

Joyce controlled the round and just kept moving forward on Hammer. While Hammer did land a couple nice blows, Joyce kept landing blows and had the round won with relative ease. It turned into a 10-8 round when Hammer went down in the closing seconds of the round. It doesn’t look like he was really knocked down so much as just sort of went down, but it might just be Hammer getting tired.

Round 4: Joyce TKO 1:20

Joyce dropped Hammer three times in the fourth round and the ref stopped it with 1:40 left in the round. Hammer kept going down on body shots and just never was able to respond.