Parker was timid and scared to get KO'd against Joshua. Both were disappointing that night. Joshua also looked timid, though less.
With a tweak in mentality, Parker could be the last man standing, tougher than all the top 3, or the top 3 before Ruiz landed on the scene, fast, good movement, respectable power, he just has something missing, to nice maybe
Parker didn't really take any serious chances at AJ. He wasn't aggressive at all. Second half of the fight, he fought to survive.
I don't think anyone can deny AJ was protected by the ref against Parker. He was given a lot of time once regaining his feet from knock downs against Ruiz and Wlad too.
This is why I stress that Mike Griffin did a magnificent job as he did his best to stay out of the action and allow both men to work themselves out of any clinches. You can see before Joshua takes a tumble to the canvas, he desperately glances at the ref expecting him to jump in and stop Ruiz from roughing him up on the inside the same way the joke ref in the Joseph Parker did. The spoiled former plastic champ became so heavily reliant on favors from refs that he didn't know what to do when around fighting in front of an impartial one
Why would he need protecting in close from a guy who was boxing defensively on the back foot? That ref stopped and warned AJ for throwing an uppercut on the inside. He was a bad ref for both guys. Dave Higgins said the same about the guy. Terrible ref.
I think I know the part of the fight your talking about. Ruiz nails him with two hard rights and Joshua looks to the ref. That's against any primal instinct to protect yourself.
Parker wasn't defensive the 2 or 3 times in the whole fight they were allowed in tight, they both landed some bombs, but I take your point. The ref denied them both the opportunity to work on the inside.
I don't know... I guess Parker is a durable fighter and effective... but man is he ugly to watch... very crude. Almost reminds me of John Ruiz!! Remember how horrible he was to watch. But even he became a champion.