What is Joseph Parker’s career best performance against a world level opponent?

Ruiz or Zhang on paper, but I don't consider Ruiz world level after the Ortiz and Arreola fights. If Ruiz fought all the top contenders apart from aj he would probably have lost to all of them

 

His best win against a live opponent is probably Zhang considering he was still dangerous.

Ruiz fight was too close to be considered the best.

And Wilder didn't have anything to offer against Parker.

All in all I'd say in regards to performances it has to be Zhang and then the rematch against Chisora.

Parker knocking down Chisora 4 times is quite impressive and arguably one of the best feats he's had in his career.

 

His performance against Chisora in the rematch was very good and gets slept on. I thought Chisora had just gotten old at the time but he's had a good run since then so I think it was just Parker. Wilder performance was punch perfect as well.

 

Wilder, Zhang and Chisora II are all very good performances.

 

Zhang I guess

His career is really not that impressive when you analyze it closely

 

Is it any different from someone like Anthony Joshua's (obviously apart from the fact that AJ beat him)?

 

If you're talking about they way they've won, then yeah, fair enough, AJ had more stoppages, but in terms of opponents, there's not much that seperates them.

 

How many times a day does Andy Ruiz cross your mind? Genuinely curious, you seem to bring up his first AJ fight a lot.

 

I usually mention him when certain fanboys get out of line, happens all to frequently, but it's in context to the OPs question. Ruiz is considered world level by the vast majority of this forum and a former champion, so on paper he's arguably Parkers best win. But the truth is he isn't. He's a fringe contender at best

 

Wilder and Chisora 2 were near punch perfect performances. Wilder was still a boogeyman when he stepped in the ring against Parker and Parker still took it to him, another boxer could have hesitated and given Wilder opportunities into the fight as he still had his power (look at Wilder vs Helenius compared to Joshua vs Helenius for example)

Chisora has gone on to be one of the top in the division again somehow and a step away from a title fight, so he mustn't have been as old as he looked against Parker.

I think it has to be his fight against Zhang or Ruiz, in the Zhang fight he showed composure and fought a great fight tactically and strategically to pull out the win. Against Ruiz he showed his speed and combinations and willingness to trade against a peak Ruiz, Ruiz was never the same after beating Joshua and fell of hard.

Parker is the kind of fighter who likes to fight 12 rounds and tries to take away his opponents strength as opposed to asserting himself in a fight unless he has to, or he thinks the risks are low. It leads to him having relatively boring and less exciting performances and him being underrated.

 

Wilder

 

The only 2 genuine world level opponents he’s faced (and were world level at the time he faced them) are Anthony Joshua and Zhilei Zhang

So his best performance against a world level HW is getting dropped twice by Zhang and escaping with a very narrow majority decision.

Which says a lot about Joseph Parker’s career.