By Scott Gilfoid: Joseph Parker (24, 18 KOs) is considered one of the harder punchers in the heavyweight division, but promoter Eddie Hearn doubts whether he has the type of power that will give his star Anthony Joshua (20, 20 KOs) any problems when the two of them face each other in their fight in March or April.
WBO heavyweight champion Parker will bring his 75 percent knockout percentage into the fight with Joshua. We’ll see who has the better power of the 2. Joshua has knocked out 100 percent of his opponents, but he was close to being knocked out by Wladimir Klitschko on April 29 last year.
In Joshua’s last fight against Carlos Takam, the referee Phil Edwards stopped the fight prematurely in round 10. Takam was still on his feet and looking strong enough to continue. Joshua had been gassing out off and on throughout the second half of that fight. If the referee hadn’t stopped the contest when he did, it’s quite possible that Joshua would have gassed out again.
”I just feel AJ’s punching power and speed is underrated and I’m not sure whether Parker has the artillery to do enough damage if there is a gunfight,” said Hearn to stuff.co.uk. ”If they are standing in a gunfight and they are trading up, then I have to pick my man all day long.”
Parker hits harder than everyone Joshua has faced during his career apart from Wladimir Klitschko. Dillian Whyte had Joshua buzzed from a left hook in their fight in 2015. That fight showed that it doesn’t take a major puncher to hurt Joshua. All it takes is someone landing a good shot on the button and Joshua will be ready to go.
The way that Joshua has been getting hurt lately in his last 2 fights, he probably shouldn’t stand and trade with Parker. If there’s an issue with Joshua’s punch resistance at this point in his career, then the last thing he needs to be doing is standing and having a gold old fashioned tear up the way that Hearn wants him to. Parker is the younger fighter of the 2, and he’s shown the same kind of chin problems that we’ve been seeing from AJ.
“It’s a very dangerous fight for both fighters,” said Hearn. “They have great styles for each other. Joseph Parker and his team will fancy this fight because he will know that AJ likes to stand and trade and get hit,” said Hearn.
Hearn has got it wrong in his estimation for why Team Parker believes their fighter can beat Joshua. The reason why they feel Parker can win the fight is for these flaws in Joshua’s game:
• Joshua’s conditioning issues
• Joshua’s shaky punch resistance – AJ’s ability to take a good shot seems to be going downhill since 2015. Joshua has been hurt in 3 fights by Whyte in late 2015, Wladimir Klitschko in April 2016 and Carlos Takam in October. The way that Joshua has been hurt in 3 out of his last 6 fights indicates that his punch resistance is diminishing. I don’t know when the problem first started. It could have been during the sparring session that Joshua had with David Price or Daniel Dubois. Both guys are said to have hurt Joshua. There’s talk that Joe Joyce also hurt Joshua and may have put him down on the canvas. if those sparring sessions happened recently, then it’s a red flag that one of those guys knocked something loose in Joshua that’s causing him to get hurt repeatedly. I’m just saying.
• Ring IQ or lack thereof for Joshua. If you take a look at ALL 20 of Joshua’s fights in the pro ranks, you’ll notice a trend in which he bum rushes his opponents right off the bat, and looks to knock them out. Joshua doesn’t even try to use boxing skills to win his fights. It’s all about Joshua bum rushing his opponents and trying to power past the guys he’s fighting. As we’ve seen in the past, knockout artists can succeed in storming their opposition, but sooner or later that style of fighting catches up to them and they wind up getting knocked out or having their careers cut short. Good examples of that are Nigel Benn, Gerald McCellan, and Mike Tyson. George Foreman is one of the rare guys that were able to have a long pro career despite being a pure slugger. The only reason Foreman was able to have success late in his career is because he used his powerful jab to control a lot of his fights. It also didn’t hurt that Foreman didn’t face the dangerous guys like Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson, when he made his comeback.
”Also AJ and his team know that if someone is willing to take chances, then they are going to get hit and AJ is technically a lot better than some tend to think,” said Hearn.
“Both fighters can punch and they may get hurt.”
I don’t see Joshua the same way that Hearn does. I don’t think he’s technically better than people think he is. Joshua can’t jab, or throw power punches from the outside. Everything that Joshua does is from the medium range, and it’s always him looking to take advantage of his 6’5”, 250lb. frame to destroy his smaller opponents. Lets’ be honest about this. Joshua cannot do any of these things: move, punch from the outside and jab. Joshua takes advantage of the thing that he has in his favor, and that’s huge size and good power. Joshua isn’t fast, and his stamina is horrible, as I’ve already pointed out. Joshua will never have speed, stamina or the ability to fight on the outside. Boxing fans and writers have Joshua figured out. They’re NOT underestimating Joshua’s boxing skills. They’re estimating them properly by pointing out the obvious about his inability to out-box his opponents. We saw how an old and over-the-hill 41-year-old Wladimir Klitschko was able to box circles around Joshua through most of the fight. The only reason Joshua won is because Wladimir got hit with an uppercut in close in the 10th round, and then crowd cheered Joshua to victory by encouraging him to pour it on. Joshua shouldn’t have been around by that late in the fight though, as Wladimir had him on the canvas in the 6th round, and there for the taking in rounds 7, 8 and 9.