Joe Joyce is fighting Filip Hrgovic and Father Time this weekend
Lewis Watson 
It's perhaps not the fight we were expecting or hoping for this weekend, but there's still plenty on the line as Joe Joyce puts his career on the line against Filip Hrgovic.
The 39-year-old Brit goes into the fight as distinct second favourite with online betting sites, with Hrgovic posing a bigger challenge than previous opponent Dillian Whyte.
Our boxing expert Lewis Watson has had a closer look at the fight and what it could mean for Joyce's career ahead of the clash on Saturday.
A heavyweight scrap too far?
After Dillian Whyte pulled out of this weekend's heavyweight fight with Joe Joyce, you'd be forgiven for assuming that the replacement opponent for the "Juggernaut" would be an unknown.
A 3-17 Latvian that has never fought in the United Kingdom or an out-of-shape American who is in his mid-40s on a seven-fight losing streak.
But this weekend's "Heavy Impact" card inside Manchester's Co-op Live Arena marks Queensbury's arrival on the DAZN streaming platform and with new horizons comes renewed hunger.
Boxing post-Covid continues to surprise us for, sometimes, the right reasons, and fewer and fewer walkover opponents are now being handed to fighters.
So instead of preparing for a 50/50 fight against the "Bodysnatcher", Joyce is now staring down the barrel of Filip Hrgovic in a fight where he can be found as long as a 3/1 underdog in the boxing betting markets.
Hrgovic is no joke. The Croatian has lost just once as a professional at the hands of IBF heavyweight champion Daniel Dubois and is a bronze medalist from the 2016 Olympic Games.
And if these qualifications weren't enough to concern Joyce, then taking on his biggest opposition to date, Father Time, should.
Joyce turns 40 in September and has endured a bruising professional career.
Joyce's best form of defence has for too long been his robust skull and ability to take punch after punch, but after years of being pummeled against 18-stone heavyweights and countless sparring sessions, the signs of vulnerability are starting to show.
The Londoner is on a run of just one win in his last four fights, suffering knockouts and knockdowns by Zhilei Zhang and Dereck Chisora and with his punch resistance seemingly gone, every fight from now on becomes a real concern for Team Joyce.
Hrgovic himself has 14 KOs in his 17 professional wins, and with youth, speed and agility on his side, it shouldn't take long for him to register the 18th win of his career and push Joyce further towards the exit signs.
Whether Joyce decides to throw the towel in on his career after this weekend will be a decision only he can make, but the opinions of those with a close eye on his career will be getting louder and louder.
Too many heavyweights fight on and on, unable to resist the fairytale script that one right hand can write for them.
But if Joyce is as uncompetitive as expected this weekend, then it might be time for someone in his team to take his pen away from him, and draw a line under a wonderful career.
Don't forget that before the Joyce v Hrgovic fight, there's the small matter of the Grand National Festival this week, and we've got everything covered with all the latest, exclusive horse racing tips from our team.
With plenty of Premier League action this weekend too, it's the perfect warm-up to a mouth-watering few weeks of boxing!
