Frank Warren says he will always be with Joe Joyce, he is always with his fighters

• Boxing

Frank Warren rejects any accusations that he has turned his back on his best friend Joe Joyce. He says that the journalists could hardly wait and deliberately misinterpreted his statement. He added that as soon as he said what he said, he knew what the result would be.

Many have accused Warren of saying that Joe Joyce should retire after losing for the second time to China's great Zhilei Zhang. This was their rematch, and Joyce suffered a heavy knockout, while the entire arena fell silent for a moment.

Warren claims that he made the statement that Joyce should retire because he always puts the health of his fighters first, and the knockout was truly brutal. “That’s his choice (regarding retirement),” Warren told iFL TV.

“The criticism I got was that I was giving him up. I didn’t say that. People don’t listen. They don’t listen to what I said. I know what I said. Go back and listen rather than grab something out of the air and interpret it to something that wasn’t even [said]….I can’t be responsible for what they say.

I can only be responsible for what I do and what I intend to do." as quoted by BoxingScene

Frank Warren claims that he will always be with Joyce the same way he was with Daniel Dubois when he had an injury

“And I intend to stand by Joe Joyce.

The same as I stood by Daniel Dubois, the same that I stand by any fighter I work with if they get beat. We bring them back. There are two fighters on that card, one suffered a serious hand injury in [super middleweight contender] Zach Parker, which was a final eliminator for a world title.

We put him back in. We got behind him and hopefully he’ll be back in contention to get another crack at the title. We’ve done the same with [light heavyweight contender] Anthony Yarde. That’s what we do. We stick by our guys.

We don’t discard them. I wouldn’t do that. And I certainly wouldn’t do that because I like working with them”. “They’re against guys that are ranked in the top-ten,” Joyce said. “That’s not a step backwards.

There are fights there if he wants to do that. It’s a big if he wants to do it. And if he does…then I will move heaven and earth to work with him and help him”.