Former world super middleweight champion George Groves believes Joe Joyce was "painfully slow" in his first fight with Zhilei Zhang earlier this year.
Joyce was beaten for the first time in his professional boxing career when he was stopped in the sixth round of their contest in April.
Now the two will meet in a rematch on Saturday night with the winner looking to force themselves into the world title picture, but if Joyce is to emerge with his hand raised, considerable improvements will need to be made following what was a poor performance.
Speaking to Bitcoin Casinos, Groves broke down the first fight and explained why Joyce found himself in trouble against his Chinese rival.
“I think Joyce can get revenge over Zhang, he was just painfully slow last time," Groves said.
"He's never been the quickest fighter, I'm not sure what training he was doing for the first fight, but he was frighteningly slow and ridiculously easy to hit. Zhang is not bad, he's been around a long time and Hrgovic squeezed past him.
“He's a good fighter Zhang, but I think Joyce is a better fighter, he has a tenacious work rate and he's a big strong dude - he's the juggernaut.
"But he can’t be so slow this time - he's always going to eat punches - but if you're going to be that slow you're going to eat all of the punches and you don't need to be that dude. I'm not sure whether he thought he was invincible or that he couldn't be knocked out. But I think a sharper Joyce beats Zhang."
The winner of Saturday's fight will become the WBO interim world heavyweight champion which puts them in a mandatory position to challenge unified world heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk.