What is Parker doing wrong?

He has low ring IQ. Only reason he won is because Zhang is pushing 70 years old.

 

You are right that his "escape" technique needs work

Something to work on for sure

 

He actually moves a lot less under Andy Lee. When he used to move his head, he wouldn't often leave himself in positions to punch back, his mind was solely not on getting hit which meant when guys really pressed him he was eventually forced to move. Now his head movement has a purpose beyond defence, he moves his head not only to evade shots but to position himself to respond and fire back if needed.

That combined with all the feints he now uses means opponents are less likely to really press him hard so he really doesn't need to move half as much as he used too. If you watch the Wilder and Zhang fights he stands right in front of them, but just out of range for most of the fight and what movement he uses is no longer backing himself up but slowly circling. So I'd argue he's actually better now and keeping himself off the ropes.

But having said all that, the one piece in his arsenal he's still missing is counter punching. He almost never does it, he relies on his speed to get off first, if he can add that to his tool kit, with his speed and now defence he will finally become the fighter he's always had the potential to be. Hopefully Lee and Parker are working on that, what they have done so far has been impressive as Parker has gone from being a pretty clueless fighter who relied on his physical talents to one who now is clearly thinking and being very thoughtful on how he fights and executes his game plan.

 

Oh so now zang is washed too then? It’s amazing how most picked wilder until he lost, same with zang. But once Parker wins they are washed up, over the hill and not good wins. Who the **** does he have to beat before idiots like you give him some credit? Does he have to come knock at your door and punch you in the face? Fool.

 

He goes back in straight lines

Even moving laterally it is at the same angle

 

Lack of lateral movement perhaps.

 

amen, I mean a big part of it is styles make fights he has never looked good as the aggressor and them two have really low punch output unlike Joyce (I do feel Parker was to heavy for that fight though).

we’ve seen before if Parker has to push the fight he’s left wanting but against wilder and Zhang he was able to let off his fast combos and get in and out and only really had to watch out for single shots at a time for most of both of the fights.

 

His movement looked slow to me. As soon as the Joshua and Ngannou fight started it looked like a 'turbo' edition of the previous fight.

 

There are a wealth of heavyweights, wishing they were doing things as wrong as Parker is at present.

 

Parker will win the rematch with Zhang by shut out if he and Andy Lee have learned from the first fight. I don’t think Zhang is washed or exposed, I thought this version of Zhang was the same one who beat Joyce and lost controversially to Hrgovic. However, that’s simply a plodding 6 round fighter, with very good power but a low output that drops off even more in the later rounds. I like him, but you can’t expect anything else of a 40 year old who years ago would’ve been a circus freak.

 

He's never had fast feet. His hand speed is quite fast tbf.

 

Parker simply gets hit too much in my opinion.

You mentioned Zhang and Joyce.

Parker got hit flush too much against both. Zhang gassed and Joyce didn’t, that was the defining factor in those two fights.

Against Wilder, I was told that Wilder had an injured hand going in, hence why he hardly threw it.