By Jeff Aranow: Deontay Wilder doubts whether WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker will be given a decision in his unification match against British heavyweight Anthony Joshua on March 31 in Cardiff, Wales. Wilder does not believe the judges in the UK will give the visiting fighter Parker (24-0, 18 KOs) the decision if it goes the full 12 rounds at the Principality Stadium.
In Wilder’s mind, the ONLY way Parker can win the fight is if he knocks Joshua out, and he’s giving him a good chance of accomplishing that task. But if Parker, 26, does lost the fight to Joshua, Wilder say he’ll avenge loss quite easily in the future once he faces AJ. Just when that will be is unknown still.
For all we know, Wilder might scare off Joshua and his promoter Eddie Hearn if he crushes his next opponent Luis ‘King Kong’ Ortiz (28-0, 24 Kos) in their fight on March 3 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
“I give Parker a hell of a chance,” Wilder said to Fighthype in discussing his thoughts on the Joshua-Parker fight. “Parker moves. He’s got great fight. As long as he moves his head around and throwing punches, he’ll definitely have a good chance of winning,” Wilder said.
Parker has the mobility, chin, stamina, power and the boxing skills to defeat Joshua. It just comes down to whether Parker is willing to get in the trenches and wear Joshua down and attack his vulnerable chin. Parker’s co-promoter Bob Arum believes that he has an excellent chance of winning, as he’s noted that Joshua has poor stamina and he can’t take a punch. Parker has the advantage in the chin department. The fight will come down to whether Parker is willing to withstand enough of Joshua’s shots in order to take him out with his own big punches. It’s going to be one of those old-fashioned type fights where the guy with the better chin wins, but not necessarily the more powerful puncher. It would be like when Gerald ‘The G-Man’ McClellan (31-3, 29 KOs) fought Julian Jackson (55-6, 49 KOs).
McClellan didn’t possess Jackson’s punching power, but he still ended up winning the fight is because he was able to take Jackson’s best shots without getting hurt. More importantly, McClellan was willing to let his hands go to throw enough shots to score the knockout. Jackson was reserved and hesitant to unload his arsenal, and he missed his chance of knocking McClellan out. If Parker is brave and willing to go after Joshua’s chin early, he could do to him what McClellan did to the more powerful Jackson. When McClellan finally did lose, it was to a fighter that was brave enough to test his chin in Nigel Benn. He wasn’t a bigger puncher than Jackson. He was just a lot more aggressive and that turned out to be all he needed to beat McClellan.
”I doubt it through if it goes to the scorecards that they’re going to give him that,” Wilder said. ”He’s going to have to knock Anthony Joshua out. I don’t see them giving him the decision. He’s going to have to knock him out to get the victory. If he don’t, I’ll revenge him easy. I can’t wait. You’re looking at the baddest man on the planet,” said Wilder.
Getting the Joshua-Wilder fight negotiated might prove to be tougher than the fight itself. Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn wants his fighter to get the bigger slice of the pie; whereas Wilder is still talking about wanting to get a 50-50 split of the revenue. Wilder can help himself if he knocks out his next opponent Luis Ortiz in the 1st round like he did with Bermane Stiverne last November, but that’s not going to be easy. Ortiz is a good heavyweight with excellent boxing skill.
What Ortiz lacks is youth and speed. He’s old at 38, and he’s slowed down considerably in the last 3 years of his career, which suggest that he doesn’t have much time left as a top fighter in the division. When you get old and slow like Ortiz, it puts you at a big disadvantage against faster, younger heavyweights like the 6’7” Deontay.
Joshua isn’t that fast, so it might not be as big of a problem for Ortiz if he ever gets a fight against him. But he might not ever fight Joshua if he gets blasted out in 1 to 3 rounds by Wilder. It would take a long time for Ortiz to work his way back to a position where he’ll be able to get a title shot against Joshua if he loses badly to Wilder.
I don’t know if it’s feasible for Ortiz to keep fighting. I guess if Ortiz is willing to stick around well into his 40s like Shannon Briggs, he might eventually get a No.1 ranking and be given a title shot. We saw recently how the World Boxing Association had Briggs rated No.1 based on wins over 3rd tier fighters. Perhaps if Ortiz is knocked out by Wilder on March 3, the WBA will eventually move the Cuban fighter back up high in their rankings if he gets enough wins over unimportant fighters.
