Joseph Parker

Nice to see you Howard Foster

You are a terrible judge Howard but I'm sure that comes as no secret to you.

 

Yeah right now he's just a gate keeper, he never really was able to make the most of his natural talent and reached his ceiling pretty early on and peaked around the Joshua fight at 26 and never really got any better like you would hope for a fighter at that age. Natural talent and even hard work can only take you so far, at some point your ring IQ is what limits your progress, we saw the same with Joshua but he was able to develop to a much more complete fighter before plateauing.

As for Parker now, he still has a name and can still make good money as upcoming fighters try and use his name to try and reach the next level. He's a pretty entertaining fighter with that name recognition so I think we'll see him in some interesting fights, guys like Anderson, Clarke, Jalalov, Torrez Jr and Makhmudov and who knows maybe Parker can upset one of them. So I'm still interested on what he does next, at least as long as it's against good opposition.

 

I am not sure if it's the quality of the opposition or if it is something about him and the way he trains that is making this U-turn in his performance. He still has some chance to improve, I think he must change the trainer, but I doubt he'll do anything about it.

 

Parker switched trainers not long ago. Out Kevin Barry. In Andy Lee.

 

He's basically a high level gatekeeper yes but can be in good fights, and is good enough to give anyone (except perhaps Usyk and Fury) a good fight. He gave Joshua a good fight, Joyce a good fight, Whyte a good fight (and probably would have won if the headclash KD had been called correctly) etc.

 

Hopefully he stays active and tries to fight his way back into contention against some bigger names. A Whyte rematch would have been nice.

 

Yes. I think he could have won that, Whyte declined fast I'm the last few years and Parker might just have a bit of a fire in his belly with Lee as his trainer + what happened in the first fight.

 

Always liked Parker but admit I lost interest lately, that recent fight he had against Massey stepping up wasn’t the best. I still think he would’ve beat AJ if the ref actually let him hit aj that was up there with Cortez for the Hatton Floyd fight, shocking reffing splitting them up whenever Parker was in range forcing him to fight on outside agaisnt taller opponent

 

the fact this man was a world champion is mental he was always gate keeper a hard man who could take punch only Joyce was able to demolish him who is best in world in my humble view so no shame in that

 

I think at his best he was a little better than a gate keeper not by much but by enough. He beat Chisora, he beat Takam two proven gate keepers in this era, he also beat a future champion in Andy Ruiz Jr in a close fight. He gave Whyte a very close fight too. He just wasn't top 5 material and did only lose to the very top guys at the time.

 

his best performance was against Joyce he actually came to fight for once but he was pulverised by a bigger harder man Joyce nearly killed him compare his face to Joshua fight not scratch look at Joyce fight car crash pizza face

 

I don't know who was advising him to bulk up. Should have stayed lean and slim, he had very fast hands.

 

Yeah Joyce battered him. But I think he came in with the totally wrong game plan. Came in at a career high weight and tried to simply blow the iron jawed Joyce out of there and then of course gassed badly against an opponent who is known for his relentless work rate. As game plans go it was as dumb as Joshua's for the Usyk fights.

A lighter more fleet footed Parker probably would of gone the distance but still lost a wide decision as his lack of counter punching would always see him unable to mount much offence when on the back foot, which has always been his most glaring flaw as a fighter. He's fine with an opponents who stands right in front of him but when pushed back, he can only fight in spurts as he can't counter and has to be allowed time to then set and throw. Same reason why his combinations vanished when he fought better opposition, never allowed the time to set to throw them as he was forced to move.

 

that is unfair. He beat the fat Mexican who is AJ’s nightmare fuel, then he lost to whyte but he was a bit naive to the dirty tactics of whyte which cost him plus Dillian was probs on PEDS. It’s difficult to get momentum with losses like that which has went against him plus stylistically wasn’t a good match up with Joyce which he paid the price for. I’d like to see any of the ‘top’ heavyweights recover from them setbacks. AJ hasn’t got over that ruiz 1 fight literally destroyed his mentality and if fury ever lost he would implode hence the low risk fights and ducking. Then there is wilder who appeared to have a mental breakdown after getting beat of fury… then I see Parker plodding on without much fuss


Edit.. plus is Parker the last champ actually willing to fight another current heavyweight champ?

 

Getting fat is never the answer it was stupid but boxing on back foot barely throwing a punch like he did against Joshua would of ended up in a loss as you say he threw as much as he could at him hes not a big man he cant carry that weight he looked like a slob Joyce looked like athlete he absolute demolished him that final blow was bloody brilliant from jobey