It’s the people vs Parker in Joshua fight
Anthony Joshua isn’t used to failure. He has stopped all 20 of his professional opponents, including Wladimir Klitschko in April, and has a fanatical support base in the United Kingdom, but for whatever reason failed to win the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year award yesterday.
In an awards system based solely on public voting, that honour went to runner Mo Farah. Joshua didn’t even make the top three, but he remains the people’s champion and it’s that popularity which will make Joseph Parker’s job so much more difficult if and when they face each other in the ring in March.
Joshua said at the awards held in Liverpool: “Joseph Parker’s realistic in terms of when he’s going to fight”.
Rather than winning a popularity contest, this will be the contest which really matters, as it’s a fight which could define the two heavyweight boxers’ careers. And, given Joshua’s knockout ratio of 100 per cent (the undefeated Parker has 18 KOs in 24 professional fights, a ratio of 75 per cent), and the go-forward nature of both men, a fight between the pair is unlikely to go the distance.
In truth, Parker’s best hope for victory is a stoppage because, given the nature of the crowd and the hype surrounding this world title unification fight, it will be difficult for Parker to convince the three judges to give him the decision.
Parallels closer to Parker’s Auckland home can be seen in stablemate Jeff Horn’s latest two fights. In July in front of more than 50,000 people at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium, welterweight Horn beat the 11-time world champion Manny Pacquiao by a hotly contested decision.
In the 10th round, Horn was warned by the referee to “show me something” such was the punishment he was receiving, but he did enough over the final two rounds to win. Two judges gave it to Horn by two rounds, while one, Waleska Roldan of New York, scored it 117-111 to Horn, an extraordinary verdict given the close nature of the fight.
An Australian journalist who was ringside at the fight told me he scored it 115-113 to Pacquiao, and Horn was a beneficiary of more friendly scoring at the Brisbane Convention Centre against Gary Corcoran last Wednesday.
Most observers at ringside had Horn down by as many as three rounds as the fight went to the middle stages; he won by TKO in the 11th after Corcoran’s corner threw in the towel due to a bad cut but one judge scored every round for Horn, while the two others gave Corcoran one.
There was no doubt that Horn, who is immensely popular in Australia and recently was crowned Queensland sportsperson of the year, deserved to win the fight as he was dominant in the second half of it, but it appeared closer at the time of stoppage than the judges suggested.
None of which will surprise professional boxing aficionados but it might give scale to the challenge facing Parker. Andy Ruiz said on his arrival in Auckland last year than he would have to beat Parker by two clear rounds to have any chance of a decision (he lost, rightly in my opinion, by majority decision) and the look of relief on Parker’s face in Manchester in September was obvious when he got another majority decision (and another right one in my view) against Hughie Fury.
He believed he would need a stoppage to be assured of a victory, but the champion tends to get the benefit of any doubt and given Joshua has two world titles to Parker’s one, that same theory will probably apply.
Joshua is powerful and has the ability to hurt Parker. But he has weaknesses — his straight-up-anddown approach, limited footwork and tendency to “gas” late in fights.
Perhaps his biggest is his “glass” jaw. It will be a target for Parker, and, should he achieve success the New Zealander will see his own popularity hit the stratosphere — here and much farther abroad.