Parker wants Joshua fight, could take UK bout this year

Boxingnews24.com

By Scott Gilfoid: It looks like WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder won’t be getting a unification fight against WBO heavyweight belt holder Anthony Parker (22-0, 18 KOs) this year after all, as the New Zealander is interested in a match against IBF/WBA champ Anthony Joshua. He’s at the top of the list for the guys that Parker wants to fight. Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn wants the 25-year-old Parker to fight in the UK later this year against the likes of Dillian Whyte or Tony Bellew.

Presumably it would help create a name for Parker for Hearn to build a bigger fight between Parker and Joshua. Hearn promotes Whyte and Bellew, so it would be one of those no lose type situations for him if Parker were to face one of them. I never thought for a second that Parker would fight Deontay in 2017. I never for a second thought the Wilder-Parker fight would happen in 2017.

I thought that Parker would opt for a big money fight against Joshua instead. Why risk his backside against a big one-punch knockout artist like Wilder when he’s got a slower, stamina-plagued heavyweight like Joshua. I think the payday Parker would get against Joshua would be a lot bigger than against Deontay, because he has the PPV money from the UK that he can take advantage of.

Obviously, Joshua vs. Parker isn’t worthy of Wembley Stadium in London, England, but you never know what Hearn is thinking. I could see him going overboard and sticking that fight at Wembley Stadium and hoping that the British boxing fans will shove up in droves like they did for Joshua-Klitschko last Saturday night. I don’t think they would. but it would be Hearn’s decision. I think he would stack the card with as many of his best Matchroom Sport fighters as possible in hopes to lure the fans to want to come see Joshua fight Parker.

The only way I see Joshua vs. Parker selling out Wembley Stadium is if Parker beats a good heavyweight in the UK later this year, and I’m talking someone really good. Dillian Whyte or Tony Bellew aren’t what I consider good heavyweights. I don’t think either of them deserve a world title fight. Bellew has only fought once at heavyweight, and that was against an injured David Haye last March.

Bellew hasn’t ever beaten a healthy heavyweight without a torn right Achilles handicapping him like it did Haye in his fight with Bellew. I think it would be sad for boxing to have Bellew challenging for a heavyweight title after only 1 fight at heavyweight. His win over Haye was tainted in my eyes. I’m just saying. There’s a world of difference from being an injured Haye to beating a healthy Haye. As for Whyte, he was recently beaten by Joshua. He also is coming off a controversial 12 round decision win over Dereck Chisora last December. There’s unfinished business in that fight for Whyte, as far as I’m concerned. Whyte fighting for a world title off the back of his performance against Chisora is pretty sad.

A fight between Joshua and Parker will likely have to wait until 2018 anyway, because Joshua will likely need to face Wladimir Klitschko again in a rematch. The big 6’6” Ukrainian has already said he repeatedly that he wants the rematch with Joshua. Wladimir had Joshua badly hurt and ready to be knocked out last Saturday night. The Ukrainian let Joshua off the hook and allowed him to come back and stop him in the 11th.

Wladimir says he’ll analyze the fight and make an official decision about what he’ll do soon, but he doesn’t seem to be interested in retiring from boxing. That’s probably not good news for Hearn and Joshua, because even if all Wladimir does is make 10% improvement over what he did last Saturday, it’s likely going to be enough for him to beat Joshua the second time around. As we saw against Klitschko, Joshua is a very, very flawed fighter with poor stamina, boxing skills and chin. If Joshua is the best heavyweight of this era, then it doesn’t say much about this era. He’s clearly a HUGE step down from the likes of a prime Klitschko, Lennox Lewis, Mike Tyson, Larry Holmes, Riddick Bowe, Evander Holyfield, George Foreman, Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali.

“Joshua is the man to beat so I am looking forward to sitting down and planning a fight with him in the future,” said Parker to skysports.com. “The goal was to become champion of the world but now it is ticked off there is still more to achieve. One of them is to unify the belts and I guess there are other fighters out there wanting to unify them as well.”

If Parker is going to defend his WBO title against someone like Whyte or Bellew in the UK at the end of the year, then he might want to think hard about whether he can knock either of them out. There would be a huge risk for Parker in traveling to the UK to fight one of their popular guys. There would be that ever present risk of Parker losing a controversial decision.

If Parker feels he can knockout Whyte or Bellew out, then he sure go ahead and take on one of them in the UK if that’s the condition for him to get a unification fight against Joshua. But if he’s not confident that he can KO either of them, then he should tell Hearn, ‘No thanks. I’m not interested in fighting one of your fringe contenders. I’m ONLY interested in fighting Joshua.’ To be honest, I don’t think Parker should waste his time fighting any of Hearn’s Matchroom stable fighters.

Why do Hearn a favor by helping out one of his guys just to get the fight against Joshua? I think Parker should tell Hearn that he ONLY wants Joshua. He’s not going to fight Bellew or Whyte in the UK later this year. Why does Parker have to fight someone just to get to Joshua? Parker is a world champion. He’s not a contender. He doesn’t have to earn a unification fight against Joshua. It’s up to Joshua and Hearn. Do they want the unification fight or not? Personally, I think Whyte and Bellew need to try and earn a title shot against one of the champions by showing that they can beat the likes of Luis Ortiz or Alexander Povetkin. I wish them both a lot of luck because they would need it against Ortiz or Povetkin. I don’t see it ending well for Bellew and Whyte, but at least they would have tried to earn the title shot instead of backing into it following controversial fights.

Parker will be defending World Boxing Organization title this Saturday night against #14 WBO challenger Razvan Cojanu in Auckland, New Zealand. Cojanu is a last minute replacement for #1 WBO Hughie Fury, who pulled out of the Parker fight recently due to a bad back. It was Hughie’s bad luck. It could turn out to be a good thing for Hughie though if the WBO still allows Hughie to fight for a world title against Parker later this year or in 2018. If Hughie can wait until Parker loses his WBO title to Joshua, then he can challenge him for the WBO title in 2018 and get a bigger payday. Of course, Hughie’s bad back would need to hold up for that fight to take place.