Anthony Oluwafemi Joshua vs. Joseph Dennis Parker - THE *OFFICIAL* POLL

He was born (and legally in NZ still is) Joseph Dennis Parker. Lupesoliai La'auli is an honorary title.

 

Dimitrenko is even less like Joshua than Ruiz Jr.

The point wasn't that Ruiz is stylistically similar to Joshua (nor that Klitschko is to Parker), the point is that Ruiz Jr. and Klitschko are their best opponents to date and their overall best performances (taking opposition quality into account; ie not including early career squash matches) to date.

 

Widening considerably. 58-11 (39) Joshua now.

 

50 respondents so far, of 69, don't believe this fight will go the distance.

Zero votes for Parker on points or for a draw.

Interesting.

 

...so am I the only person that foresees twelve rounds of difficult-to-score boxing, resulting in all-over-the-place scorecards?

I think much ado is being made by either faction about the chance their man has to knock out the other. I see these chances, on both sides, as rather slim. Joshua has big power, but all of his early kayos have been against lower-tier opposition and his late stoppages in championship length fights against world class opposition have come when his opponents are exhausted to such a point that he can batter them down, with shots that have appreciably slowed by that point in the fight (and he doesn't have blazing hand speed to begin with) - shots that Parker has shown enough defensive capability to avoid, roll with, or pick off. Conversely, while there are embarrassing knockdown & stoppage defeat stories haunting Joshua from the amateur days, and rumors of this or that HW stunning or dropping him in sparring along the way in the pros, his chin as it stands now, as demonstrated in the Klitschko & Takam fights, is fine. Parker can land every single power shot he threw (let alone connected on) vs. his last several opponents - none of them is switching Joshua's lights out.

Everybody seems to be expecting this will be a "don't blink, somebody's getting laid out" type of match because of Joshua's perceived inverse ratio of power (which may in fact be overrated) to chin (which may in fact be underrated) with Parker rightly or wrongly perceived as closer to dead-center in both departments. I see it differently. After the first couple of rounds, each will have felt out his opponent and maybe taken a stab at testing his defenses and trying a cheeky power combo upstairs or two. After that, we're going to settle in for what I think will be a fascinating chess match. Joshua will lean to & fro, drawing the lead from Parker and then closing rank to crowd & smother him, playing a game of jab & grab, while also working the body and keeping Parker honest with uppercuts on the inside. Parker, meanwhile, is going to use flashes of superior hand speed & dexterity to catch & shoot, and hope to line up Joshua for a big slingshot right cross whenever he sees a window for timing it. Sure, this is heavyweight boxing, and somewhere on the path of 36 minutes one man or the other could get touched on the button and go to sleep. I think, however, everybody needs to brace for the possibility of a long haul, and the implications of two such disparate physiques & styles exerted over a R-x-R distribution of points. This is going to be a Ward vs. Kovalev I type of fight, where people are still debating who lost which round, down to granular analytical dissection of frame-by-frame video sequences a few years from now.

 

You think Joe hits with the same force as Wlad? Even if he's lighting AJ up with counters all night, very hard for me to see a stoppage. Joshua's chin problems from the amateurs get overblown. Unlike with, say, Wilder, they haven't translated into his legs wobbling at the hands of journeymen and fat slobs all throughout his campaign.

By that same token, however, the people on the other side claiming that Parker will be "destroyed" when there are really no concerns IMO regarding his chin (granted no giant punchers faced, and many of the sluggers he did face vanquished early before they could teach us anything - but enough decent to so-so ones [Takam, Ruiz, Dimi, Botha, Meehan, Nascimento, Martz, Haumono, Minto, Tank Williams] going a few rounds and landing the odd peach to indicate that no, Parker isn't made of glass...or even ordinary enough material for Joshua to disintegrate with a single blow) is hyperbolic as well.

 

That's a possibility. I think controversy looms in this one, either way. Everybody is anticipating it all being tied up neatly with a bow with some kind of storybook KO ending to set up an Undisputed Heavyweight Championship match for the winner against Wilder, and they're probably all going to end up disappointed at not getting such a cut & dry outcome. I think whether a controversial decision or stoppage, there are going to be people clamoring for a rematch to settle the score before either undertakes any business in the Western hemisphere.