By Marcus Richardson: Joseph Parker’s promoter David Higgins believes the deal for the unification fight against Anthony Joshua will be finalized by the end of next week. Higgins is working out the last parts of the deal with Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn. Higgins will be flying out to London, England next week to wrap up the negotiations.
Higgins says he views IBF, WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua (20-0, 20 KOs) as the “golden goose”, and he says that he’s going to be sacrificed when he gets inside the ring with his fighter Parker (24-0, 18 KOs) in 2018. The Joshua-Parker fight, if it gets signed, will take place in either March or April next year.
Joshua and Hearn believe that Parker will be no problem. They feel that it’s a sure thing win. But they also thought that Wladimir Klitschko was a sure thing, and he also won. If an older heavyweight like Wladimir was able to make Joshua look bad, hen Parker could to do much more.
“Eddie Hearn is making a grave mistake feeding AJ to Joseph Parker,” Higgins said to skysports.com.“If AJ is the Golden Goose, I would liken it to Hearn sacrificing his glass goose. We’ve met somewhere between 30 and 35 per cent. Eddie Hearn has sent me a contract based on the [Wladimir] Klitschko contract,” said Higgins.
Parker has the punching power, size and the mobility to give Joshua all he can handle. The guys that Joshua has done well against during his pro career were fighters that were immobile the whole time or at least at the time that he knocked them out. Joshua is going to need to go after Parker, because he’s not going to make it easy for him by standing in one place. Parker will look to frustrate Joshua in the same way Wladimir Klitschko did last April.
Hearn is optimistic the fight with Parker will get done, but he’s not getting too worked up about it yet. Hearn views the Joshua-Parker negotiations as incomplete at this time. Hearn wants to make the fight happen, but if not, he’ll match Joshua against someone else. It won’t be the end of the world for Joshua if he doesn’t face Parker. But you have to view the news that Higgins is going to be meeting with Hearn next week as a positive sign the fight will get done shortly.
Higgins previously said he wouldn’t be coming to the UK unless the negotiations had a good chance of producing the fight. Now that Higgins is sounding excited about coming over to London to meet with Hearn, it must be viewed as a good sign the Joshua-Parker fight is close to being finalized.
Higgins announced on Thursday that he’s agreed to a purse split ”between 30 and 35 per cent” for the Joshua vs. Parker fight. This isn’t the number that Higgins had originally hoped to get for Parker, but it’s still very good money for his fighter.
“There is no fight until the contract is signed,” said Hearn to skysports.com.
Hearn is taking a low key approach to the Joshua vs. Parker negotiations. Inwardly, Hearn has got to be very excited about this. Joshua is the one that wants the Parker fight due to him holding the WBO title.
Joshua vs. Parker will be a battle of the unbeaten heavyweights. The winner will hold 3 of the 4 heavyweight titles, and will continue to be undefeated. The loser will have to rebuild their careers.