If anything, his career has stalled now that Duco aren't his sole promoters. Eddie Hearn seems to be struggling to figure out what to do with him as he has now following outside of NZ and Samoa and is more interested in promoting his other HWs that will make him a bit of money. Mind you pulling out of the Chisora fight wouldn't have done Parker and his team any favours with Hearn.
The Eddie Hearn payday effect, happens to a lot of fighters Two massive paydays against AJ and Whyte and now maybe wants to cruise to one final big fight and retire
He definitely wants a big fight But Parker says he wants one last run at the title before retiring in 4 years
I was worried about this tbh. Whenever Hearn has brought someone dangerous outside of the UK into his stable he has fed them very low interest fights and they've ended up having to go elsewhere to go anywhere - it's hard not to see it as him throwing money at potential road bumps to his local favourites to make them go away, more legal / harder to prove than matchfixing
Eddie Hearn has undone every bit of work that Duco and Higgins did in getting Parker on the world stage. What Eddie is doing to Joe in 19/20 is on par with the damage Barry did to Tua back in his day. Sad to say the least... as Parker has the tools to beat the top of the division.
To be fair, Parker vs Chisora was an awesome match up and was going to really springboard Parker but the infection was not anything anyone could plan or control and just bad luck in general - but very poor timing and a shame for him to be fed someone who there will be so little reward in beating, even though it seems that in recent fights he has proven a potential speedbump himself.
He needs to fight the winner of Joyce/Dubois. I think that would be his ticket. Can't see him fighting Whyte or Ruiz again, or Ortiz who's on the way out, so what's left?
To be honest, I really believe the way he lost to Whyte has changed Parker psychologicaly. Whyte came fighting with some dirty boxing, clash of heads, leaning against Parker on the ropes and more. I feel like Parker realised he is not that "animal" to take on the big guys. His first fight after Whyte he tried to convince us of the opposite, he trashtalked his opponent and lowblowed him multiple times during the fight, trying to show an animal which actually he is not. It was really weird and I believe to this day that the way he lost to Whyte had an impact on him mentally.
Parker needs to really think about his career if he thinks this is a fight worth taking. Clearly lacking confidence to take on other top 10s-15s ever since his loss to Whyte, but he's got the skills and chin to stay in there with the top 10. You should've been fighting Chisora instead of this dude.
