IBF orders Joseph Parker vs. Carlos Takam title eliminator

By Boxing News - 02/25/2016 - Comments

parkerBy Jeff Aranow:
The International Boxing Federation order a heavyweight eliminator bout on Wednesday between #5 IBF Carlos Takam (33-2-1, 25 KOs) and #6 IBF Joseph Parker (18-0, 16 KOs). The winner of the Parker-Takam fight will be the new IBF mandatory challenger and will be facing the winner of the April 9 fight between IBF heavyweight champion Charles Martin (23-0-1, 21 KOs) and #4 IBF Anthony Joshua (15-0, 15 KOs) at the O2 Arena in London, UK.

The #1 and #2 spots are currently unrated by the IBF, and No.3 contender is Erkan Teper, who is currently suspended.

Parker and Takam won’t avoid the IBF eliminator. Both are reportedly interested in taking that fight, according to ESPN. They’ll need to work quickly to negotiate the fight because they’ve got slightly less than a month to get the fight agreed and signed.

If the two fighters fail to agree to terms, then it’ll go to a purse bid. Parker, 24, had been scheduled previously to fight on April 17, but he can’t take that fight due to the IBF eliminator. He’ll now be focusing on just the Takam fight.

This makes it tough on the winner of the Joshua vs. Martin fight between they’ll at some point in time have to face the winner of the Parker-Takam fight, and that’s not going to be an easy fight. Even if they had to face the loser of that fight, it would still be a tough fight.

However, the Martin-Joshua winner will likely be able to buy some time before they have to face Parker or Takam, because they’ll likely look to take a unification fight next against either IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Tyson Fury or WBC champion Deontay Wilder. Those are big money fights and you could understand why the Joshua-Martin winner would want to fight either of those guys.

It’s unclear where the Parker vs. Takam fight will wind up. Parker mainly fights in New Zealand. Takam fights out of France. The fight could take place in May, according to Dan Rafael.

In his last three fights, Parker has beaten Daniel Martz, Jason Bergman, and Kali Meehan. Parker has knocked out his last seven opponents dating back to 2014.

Takam, 35, was knocked out in the 10th round by Alexander Povetkin in 2014. Since then, he’s won his last three fights against Michael Sprott, Marcelo Luiz Nascimento and George Arias. Takam gave Povetkin some problems, but he had problems with his skills. He matched up well in the power and work rate department, but Povetkin used a lot of different tricks to get the win.

Takam beat Tony Thompson by a 12 round unanimous decision in 2014. In the same year, Takam was arguably robbed of a win in his fight against Mike Perez. The fight was scored a 10 round draw, but many boxing fans felt that Takam had done more than enough to deserve the victory in that contest. Perez was badly outworked by Takam throughout the fight, especially in the second half.

Takam will be a very tough fight for Parker. If he can’t bang Takam out of there, this could go against Parker. Takam can punch and he has a good work rate.



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