Barry tips Wilder, Parker conflicted
Joseph Parker, friends with Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury, is wary about making a prediction ahead of their heavyweight clash in Los Angeles today but his trainer Kevin Barry has little doubt about who will win.
For Barry, the right hand of WBC world champion Wilder, which he describes as the most fearsome weapon in boxing, will eventually catch Fury and that will be the end of the Englishman’s night.
Parker and Barry will attend the fight before flying to New Zealand to prepare for Parker’s bout against Alexander Flores in Christchurch a week on Saturday.
“It’s the biggest fight in heavyweight boxing since Fury beat Wladimir Klitschko,” Barry said. “You have two undefeated, huge guys. This makes for a special fight; one guy with great skills, another guy with tremendous power. Wilder will go down as one of the biggest punchers of all time. Usually you don’t get rewarded with those sorts of compliments until the end of your career.
“There is no other guy [apart from Wilder] in the heavyweight division who has 39 knockouts in 40 fights. The guy is a physical freak. Then you look at how Fury overcame all the odds to beat Klitschko when no one gave him a chance. This time, it would be an even bigger upset.”
Barry said Fury’s awkward unorthodox style could trouble Wilder early on, adding the Englishman deserved credit for even getting into the ring with the American after his problems with drugs and mental illness since he beat Klitschko in 2015.
“For him to reinvent himself to fight the most dangerous fighters in the world at the moment is nothing short of a miracle.
“Do I think he can do it? Anything is possible in boxing, but do I think he can spend 36 minutes [with Wilder] and not get clipped? No, I don’t.”
Parker, who keeps in regular contact with Fury and Wilder, was more diplomatic, saying: “I’m on the fence on that one — I’ve been there from the beginning and still am. On one side, you have power, and on the other, you have boxing [ability], but I’m friends with both guys.”
It was perhaps Flores who put it the most succinctly when he said: “I think it’s a 50-50. Fury is a big guy but he can box and move well. Wilder has that right hand. At any given time, he can land it, and that’s it.”
● Patrick McKendry travelled to Las Vegas and Los Angeles with assistance from Flooring Xtra, a major sponsor of the Joseph Parker v Alexander Flores fight at Christchurch’s Horncastle Arena on December 15.