Our Kiwi heavyweight is playing the long game as he lines up another world title shot, reports Marc Hinton
Joseph Parker doesn’t know if his fellow heavyweights around the world are dodging him, but the Kiwi boxing great is sure about one thing – the more time they give him, the better prepared he is going to be for the defining fight that has to come his way sooner or later.
The 33-year-old former WBO world heavyweight champion, and knocking loudly on the door of becoming the first two-time title-holder from New Zealand, finds himself at what looks to be a frustrating juncture in the snakes and ladders world of the top end of the big-boy division.
Parker (32-3) sits around three or four on the rankings of the best heavyweights on the planet, depending on whether you include the supposedly retired Tyson Fury on your list. Many believe the Gypsy King will return to the ring sooner rather than later, possibly to face Anthony Joshua in a much-anticipated Battle of Britain that never quite eventuated hitherto, or possibly for a trilogy matchup against the great Oleksandr Usyk who has beaten him twice in arguably the defining fights of the contemporary heavyweight era.
Regardless, Parker has fought his way back to the pointy end of the division, courtesy of six straight victories since his shock defeat to Joe Joyce in 2022, including some significant results over Deontay Wilder, Zhilei Zhang and Martin Bakole (most recently in February), and what appears to be a game- changing partnership with head trainer Andy Lee and nutritionist and conditioning guru George Lockhart.
They have Parker, by all accounts, at the peak of his powers, as big and strong as he’s ever been, but also as conditioned, fit and power-packed as he’s managed in his career. They had hoped to demonstrate that in a February tilt at Daniel Dubois’ IBF world title in Riyadh, only to be denied by an eleventh-hour cryoff from the Brit because of a mystery illness.
Since then, Dubois was signed to fight Usyk in a July 19 unification blockbuster at Wembley Stadium, which pushes another tilt by the Kiwi at a world title – maybe even all of them – back further.
It looks like Parker will fight again in September. His promoter, Frank Warren, has indicated as much, though finding an opponent was proving problematic.
That’s the frustrating bit. Or at least to those of us on the outside.
“I’m not frustrated,” says Parker who acknowledges rivals are “wary” of getting in the ring with him. “Boxing is boxing. We’ve been through this. Last year we had a fight in March against (Zhilei) Zhang. They said to us we’re going to have another fight soon. That dragged on ‘til February. We’re used to this. They keep dragging us out. But all it does is give us more time to prepare.
“We’ve already done one phase of shredding, now we’re going to do another phase of building. The more time you give us, the more we can work on. There’s no frustration – you just roll with the punches.”
It’s likely Parker will have a holding-type fight in September, something to keep him active, and tune him up for a potential matchup against the winner of Usyk – Dubois, or maybe even to step in as the WBO’s vacated champion should that play out. The WBO is the next mandatory challenge for any unified heavyweight champ, and Parker is their No 1 contender.
Parker, who just welcomed his sixth child, Klaus, into the world, doesn’t care who he fights next. “We will fight anyone,” he says. “We have goals and our goal is to fight this fight to get to this world title, or fight this fight to get to that world title…. they’ve changed up the whole thing, so our goal now is just to smash whoever is in front of us.” Parker’s trainer, American guru George Lockhart, says there is no challenge in getting his Kiwi charge into top shape as soon as a fight is confirmed.
“The more time they give us the better it is,” he shrugs. “Joe had the cardio, he had the strength, he’s got the power and got the mobility. Now we’re taking a lot of the bodyfat off, and we’ll start working on power and endurance. We’ll take a break when we go watch the Usyk-Dubois fight, then we’ll start camp in Ireland with Andy Lee. Whoever we face, I talk to Andy, Andy gives me the game-plan, and I give Joe the conditioning for that game-plan.”
Parker was asked who he’d like to face.
“I want to fight Usyk. Everyone wants to fight Usyk because everyone thinks Usyk is the best. He’s a special fighter. I said to Usyk in Italy, ‘I want to fight you because I believe you’re the best right now. I want to test myself against you’. He said, ‘maybe, we’ll see’.”