ONE GIANT LEAP
Why Joshua and Parker is essential for the sport
‘THIS IS THE FIRST TIME IN BRITAIN TWO REIGNING HEAVYWEIGHT WORLD CHAMPIONS HAVE MET’
THIRTY-SIX minutes.
That’s how long they make us wait for the press conference to begin. That is the length of the tease. It was supposed to start at eleven o’clock, but that was never likely. “We’re running on AJ time,” we are told 20 minutes into the delay – not that anyone protests or cares. Stuck in traffic or not, we’re being teased. We know the process by now. We tell ourselves, “He’ll be here soon.”
It’s good to be teased. Let me rephrase that. It’s good to be teased until you realise the tease is actually the climax and that there won’t be anything beyond it. No longer appealing or exciting, the frustration of the tease then supersedes the anticipation and nobody goes home happy.
Title reigns in boxing are one big tease. Heavyweight title reigns, in particular, are one big tease. All flirt and foreplay, they rarely lead anywhere and a champion’s trajectory tends to be of the straight line variety as opposed to the upward. For all the talk, for all the promise, there is an absence of payoff – for them, the champion, and for us, the audience.
The March 31 unification fight between Anthony Joshua and Joseph Parker, however, announced Sunday (January 14), is just the right kind of tease. It’s second base for the heavyweight division. It’s sexy and alluring and, best of all, explicitly suggests more – and better – is to come.
“This is the first time in Britain two reigning heavyweight world champions have met,” said Eddie Hearn, the fight’s promoter, finally on stage, doing the promoter thing. “It’s the first time in boxing history that two world heavyweight champions have fought in an undisputed title fight with 100 percent winning records. This is a great fight between two unbeaten, fast, hungry and dangerous heavyweight world champions.”
In a nutshell, it’s a battle of heavyweight champions – Joshua holds the IBF and WBA belts, Parker has the WBO – young enough to be considered raw, unproven and flawed, yet gifted and established enough for us to care about them and the outcome of this fight. It also has wonderful forward motion in the sense that Parker represents one small step for Joshua and Joshua, likewise, represents one small step for Parker. The fight as a whole, meanwhile, represents one giant leap for the entire heavyweight division.
Without a fight like this, the division, splintered and aimless, winds up being a confusing and somewhat depressing place. There are belts tossed around like crumbs to ducks and champions with a propensity to hoard, keep what they believe is theirs, rather than take a risk and go steal from the others. As a result, it’s incredibly difficult to determine the identity of the best or decipher what any of it actually means. (Frankly, the more pieces of an unfinished puzzle there are, the easier it is to lose one or two down the back of the sofa.)
Today’s belt holders, Joshua, Parker and WBC champion Deontay Wilder, have rightly been celebrated for the way they have dolled up an ugly division, lathered it with make-up, allowed it to feel pretty again. But this new world order will only truly take off if Joshua, Wilder and Parker do away with the restrictions imposed by their titles and start taking relationships to the next level.
In a sense, that’s what Joshua vs. Parker represents. It’s a power play; an aggressive move. It’s a rook leaping over a line of pawns. It’s the best thing to happen to the division, in terms of heralding this new era, since Tyson Fury ventured to Dusseldorf, Germany, and cast a spell on Wladimir Klitschko, thus separating him from his countless world titles and allowing everyone else to touch and perhaps even play with them.
Since that night, since Fury did everyone else’s dirty work, the division has promised a lot – teased a lot – but, Joshua vs. Klitschko aside (a glorious occasion and changing of the guard but with one foot still rooted in the past), delivered very little. It has, in actual fact, merely offered more of the same. Joshua got his belt, called himself champion. Parker got his belt, called himself champion. Wilder, meanwhile, the WBC ruler, now felt more comfortable calling himself champion, what with Klitschko removed from the picture, but seemed less inclined to actually go out there and prove it.
Each of these men have impressed in their own way. They have won fights,
often spectacularly, and generated plenty of interest and anticipation. But without them getting together and doing the right thing, the very essence of ‘the heavyweight champion of the world’ is lost.
Of course, many said this essence was lost when Klitschko tightened his grip on the division only to deliver a stream of soporific title defences in Germany. Klitschko, though, for all his failings, was at least recognised as the best heavyweight on the planet – in the eyes of those who still consider it an accolade worthy of note – and with this came a sense of order, an understanding, 20/20 vision. Contenders knew who to target and fear, and Klitschko, for better or worse, was the figurehead of a generation; the person tying it all together; the disciplinarian who prevented it becoming a free-for-all. Remove Klitschko and fun and frolics ensue, yes. You also, however, remove the division’s structure and identity. You remove its language.
Which is why Joshua vs. Parker, as a jumpstart, is so important. Which is why its appeal is more than just the fight itself. A gateway to completion, after this there will presumably be no stopping the heavyweights. We’ll see Joshua vs. Wilder or Parker vs. Wilder. We’ll see Wilder vs. Fury. We’ll see Joshua vs. Fury or Parker vs. Fury. Not only that, there will be newfound clarity to it all, which means anyone looking to challenge the champion will do so safe in the knowledge that a win confirms their status as the best in the world.
“The heavyweight division needs a fight like this,” said Parker’s coach, Kevin Barry, nailing it. “Boxing, in general, needs a fight like this. We need champions fighting each other.
“This fight has been in the making for the last three years. We have looked at Joshua since he came through the Olympic programme and won the gold medal. We have tremendous respect and admiration for what he has achieved. We have sat down and watched all of Anthony’s fights. We have a logbook and playbooks. We knew this day was going to come.
“Joseph Parker needs a career-defining fight. I believe Anthony Joshua got his against Wladimir Klitschko. He was taken to places he’d never been before. He went to a dark place. He picked himself off the canvas and came back with a sensational win.
“Joseph Parker has not had a careerdefining fight. I need this to be his greatest performance. If he can show Anthony Joshua and the public what I see in the gym every day, you’ll see that he’s a very hard guy to beat.”
Joseph Parker, 24-0, is popular – flavour of the month – but probably not in the way he wants to be. He attracts attention and interest because he’s deemed to be easy, or easier: an easier opponent, an easier route to a heavyweight title. While that’s probably unfair, and may prove a fatal error on the part of those out to woo the New Zealander, it is a truth nonetheless and has helped Parker and his eccentric promoter, David Higgins, leverage their position and emerge as influential players in the heavyweight title auction. They have a belt and with that belt comes power and with that power comes a fight like the one set to take place in Cardiff on March 31.
“This is an exciting time to be a heavyweight,” said Parker. “This will probably be the hardest camp I’ve ever had. I have a big challenge in front of me with Joshua. I’ve watched him for a long time and he has watched me. I know his strengths and he knows mine. I know his weaknesses and he thinks he knows mine. I can’t wait to put on a great performance and hopefully catch him on the chin and knock him out.”
Anthony Joshua is a British world heavyweight champion in the pay-per-view age, which is both a blessing and a curse. In terms of earning potential, of course, it can only ever be considered a blessing: each title defence sees him hit new heights,
‘I KNOW JOSHUA’S STRENGTHS AND HE KNOWS MINE. I KNOW HIS WEAKNESSES AND HE THINKS HE KNOWS MINE’
break records, and bank obscene amounts of money. On the flipside, however, there will be less patience extended the way of a 28-year-old still finding his feet and getting to grips with his position at the top of the pile. If you want to call yourself the world heavyweight champion, and be a world heavyweight champion who fights on payper-view events in front of sold-out stadium crowds, you better give us some forward movement, they’ll say. There is no time to hang around, even if your inclination is to learn a few more tricks and gain experience. There is no longer the opportunity to try stuff out against Dominic Breazeale, or unleash the beast on Eric Molina, or chip away at Carlos Takam. Those days are gone.
In fact, should Joshua, 20-0, successfully collect the belts and remain undefeated, his career could be a short one. Such is his earning potential, he might not need to keep boxing into his thirties; such is the shallowness of the division, he might soon run out of viable opponents. Because there is this pressure on Joshua to step up every time, keep moving forward, keep bettering the one before, he could reach the pinnacle – at this point, a fight against Deontay Wilder for all the marbles – sooner than he or Eddie Hearn, his promoter, ever expected or intended.
If Joseph Parker’s next, what happens beyond that? In the interests of putting one foot in front of the other, and appeasing his public, it can only be Deontay Wilder or what remains of Tyson Fury, a man whose comeback has so far been limited to inane tweets and Instagram videos. Then, once that mission is complete, all that’s left is for the credits to roll and the curtain to fall.
“This is about making history now,” Joshua said. “We’re moving in that direction. This is for another strap.
“We’re all blessed with the ability to work hard but what separates me from everybody else is that I mix intelligence with hard work. Not only will I be in peak physical condition on March 31, my mind will be in the right place as well. I’m not only looking forward to the physical challenge, I’m looking forward to embracing the mental challenge as well.”
Joshua and Parker were well within their rights to tease us a little longer. History tells us that. So do their ages: 28 and 26 years old respectively. So does the fact they are new to this, still coming to terms with calling themselves and each other ‘champion’.
But, thankfully, they’ve chosen not to go that route. They have eschewed the temptation to keep teasing until all interest has fizzled out – or one of them loses – and instead advanced to the next stage in the heavyweight clean-up process. (In light of this, waiting 36 minutes – the length of a 12-round fight – for them to officially announce the thing was no great inconvenience.)