Angry Barry comes out swinging at Parker’s knockers

Trainer Kevin Barry is ‘‘annoyed’’ Joseph Parker doesn’t get the respect he deserves from some quarters for his performances and achievements.

Parker’s gritty majority points win over Hughie Fury to defend his WBO world heavyweight title in Manchester certainly wasn’t a unanimous hit with the public or media in New Zealand and the UK.

Barry expressed frustration at some of the feedback for a victory he felt was achieved under difficult circumstances. He acknowledged that as a world champion Parker was under extra scrutiny, but there needed to be some realism attached to that.

Hugely popular with his charismatic personality, Parker can be polarising when it comes to his ring work.

‘‘Joe is now 24-0, he is 25-yearsold, he’s the first heavyweight champion we have ever had, he’s just defended his title half way around the world against an undefeated fighter. He has got to get some props for that,’’ Barry said as the team transferred from Manchester to London to prepare for the long haul home.

‘‘I feel very annoyed when people don’t give him the respect that he deserves.’’

Barry felt there was an understanding from another Kiwi world champion outfit who know about operating under relentless public pressure.

‘‘It was really great to see the videos online of the All Blacks sitting down in Argentina watching Joe ... those boys made a lot of noise when he got the decision. That meant more to us than the negative rubbish that some people want to hand out.’’

Barry suggested Parker was in a no-win situation in the eyes of some and he found that bemusing.

‘‘No matter what he does, even if he was to fight Anthony Joshua and knock him out, people would say ‘it was a lucky punch, why didn’t he do it a round earlier, how come he got hit with those punches before he knocked him out?’ It’s like you can never win.’’

Barry is no stranger to the tall poppy syndrome that exists in New Zealand, having been through this before as he took David Tua to a world title fight against the odds.

‘‘I learned that many, many years ago. The perfect example was in the Tua days when early in his career nobody gave him respect ... ‘too short, all he has got is his left hook, he’ll never be anything’. There were some high profile people who came out and said he would never be in the top 100 in the world. These are your ‘experts’.’’

Barry conceded Parker had put expectations on himself with his persistent pre-fight talk of knocking Fury out. When that didn’t happen, it left him open to some criticism.

‘‘A lot of people put a lot of emphasis on that,’’ Barry said. ‘‘But when this fight was first con- firmed I said it’s a horrible style, a style I would never take for Joe,’’ he added of the mandatory circumstances around the bout.

‘‘There’s only one Hughie Fury and that’s an awkward fighter. What he gave us is exactly what I expected. I thought Joe hit him flush a couple of times but he is very, very good at surviving. He frustrated Joe and tied him up very cleverly, I give him good props for that.’’

Barry felt the claims from the Fury camp that they were robbed by the judges had no substance although he admitted the deciding scores from two of the three judges of 118-110 were ‘‘a little wide’’. That translated to Fury winning just two of the 12 rounds. The third judge ruled the fight a draw at 114-114.

‘‘There was only one guy fighting and one guy surviving and you can’t win the heavyweight world title if you go backwards for 12 rounds and land a handful of punches, simple as that,’’ Barry said.

‘‘We won by a wide margin on two judges. I don’t know what else we could have done other than knock him out.’’

Barry said he would have taken the points decision any time, considering the circumstances and the risks involved in fighting in Manchester. Simply holding on to the WBO belt was imperative, no matter the method of victory.

‘‘It was a great achievement for what we had to go through in our first big fight out of New Zealand. The stakes were so high in this fight.’’