The Olympic silver medalist recently announced he will be training with Sanchez, who also boasts unified middleweight champ Golovkin, as well as former unified cruiserweight ruler Murat Gassiev.
News of the union came after Ismael Salas, Joyce’s first professional coach, announced a move into semi-retirement.
Speaking from his new Californian base at Big Bear on how the link came about, Joyce exclusively told World Boxing News: “Well with Salas retiring I had to look around for different coaches and with help from my management I managed to secure a new one in Abel Sanchez.
“And we came out here to Big Bear to have a little trial run to see if we would gel and we have gelled, so I will be training with Abel Sanchez,”
The caliber of the stable at Big Bear is up there with the best in the world and Joyce is relishing the new surroundings and training with future hall of fame stars like ‘GGG’.
“Yeah it’s a really good team here at Big Bear,” said Joyce. “I haven’t seen Gassiev yet; he hasn’t been back, Golovkin is really helpful and motivates me and the team,”
Although Golovkin is known for his ferocious fighting style, Joyce spoke of a more light-hearted side to the Kazakh warrior.
“He comes up with more ideas to beast me,” Joyce said with a chuckle. “He’ll be like ‘I’ve got a present’ and it’ll be like some weights or some other crazy exercise or something.
“He’s a really nice guy. He does crazy amounts of training and he likes you to suffer with him,” he added.
Not only does ‘The Juggernaut’ have Golovkin’s mild-mannered but tough tricks to comprehend with, Joyce also the altitude at Big Bear (over 2000 meters) presents new challenges.
Discussing how tough the conditions are, Joyce joked: “The first couple of days were tough; the first week was tough, actually; it doesn’t really get any easier. The second week has been just as tough.”
The pain and suffering will be worth it if Joyce can go on to have the same level of success as some of the previous and current attendees of the worldwide famous gym.
Thomas Davison is a staff writer for World Boxing News. Follow Thomas on Twitter @thomasdavison93
