By Stanley White: Joseph Parker says he prefers to take a 60-40 split of the revenue for a unification fight against IBF, WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua for next year. Parker says he won’t go below 35 percent for the fight. That’s the cutoff point for how low the 25-year-old unbeaten Parker (24-0, 18 KOs) would be willing to drop down to take.
Parker says if he can’t get the deal that he’s looking for to face Joshua (20-0, 20 KOs), then he’ll look elsewhere towards fights against Deontay Wilder, Lucas Browne or Tony Bellew. Parker sees a lot of good options out there for him in the heavyweight division.
Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn is not agreeable to the 60-40 deal that Parker is asking for unfortunately, and it’s unclear whether he’ll even accept a 65-35 deal either.
”Forty per cent is what we think is a good deal… that’s what our target is but they’re not on the same page as us in terms of making 60-40. So anything below 35 per cent wouldn’t be a go ahead for us,” said Parker to the dailymail.co.uk.
The fact that Parker is already giving ground in the negotiations suggests that he’s not going to get 40 percent or even 35. It would be in Parker’s best interest to look elsewhere for a fight unless he’s willing to accept a figure below the 35 percent cut that he’s now willing to take.
It’s unclear how low Hearn will go for his offer to Parker, It wouldn’t be surprising if the most Hearn is willing to offer Parker is a 25 percent cut of the money. So in other words, Parker would be getting just a little bit more than what a voluntary challenger would be getting for fighting Joshua. A voluntary challenger gets 20 percent, and a mandatory 30 percent.
“I’d like to test myself against the best champions… (but) there is Tony Bellew, Lucas Browne, there are a lot of options there,” said Parker.
Joshua won’t be able to win the World Boxing Organization heavyweight title from parker if Hearn can’t make a deal. That doesn’t mean that Joshua won’t eventually get a crack at the WBO belt. It just means he would have to wait for Parker to eventually get beaten by someone before he can potentially fight for that belt.
If Hearn can’t make a deal with that champion either, then he’ll never get a chance to win the WBO strap. Joshua might lose anyway in 2018, because he wants to fight WBC champion Deontay Wilder and former unified champion Tyson Fury. Those guys could beat Joshua in back to back fights. There won’t be any point in Joshua and Hearn worrying about a unification fight with Parker if he can’t get past Wilder and Fury.