By Jim Dower: A purse bid has been scheduled on February 1 for the fight between WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker and his mandatory challenger Hughie Fury at the World Boxing Organization’s headquarters in San Juan, Puerto Rico. According to Fight News, the minimum bid is set for $1 million. The split will be in favor of WBO champion Parker by a 60-40 cut of the revenue. That’s not bad. When you compare it to the 75-25 for the IBF, 60-40 sounds pretty good.
As for the fight, the 6’6” Hughie is going to have to try and stay out of range of Parker’s big power shots, because he’s going to be looking to knock him out. Hughie doesn’t have the punching power or the hand speed that Parker’s last opponent Ruiz Jr. had in their fight last December. Parker had problems with Ruiz’s speed and combination punching in the first half of the fight.
It was only after Ruiz Jr. faded in the second half of the fight that he was able to come on to win a questionable 12 round decision. Ruiz Jr. looked like the better fighter in the eyes of a lot of the boxing fans that saw the fight. Hughie lacks the offensive qualities that Ruiz Jr. had. What Hughie does have going for him is his height, reach, and a good jab.
Hughie knows how to use his size to win fights, and he’s hard to hit on a frequent basis. What we don’t know is if Hughie will fade in the second half of the fight like he did in his last bout against Fred Kassi in 2016. Hughie’s stamina problem was blamed on his medical issues with his skin. If Hughie gets tired in the Parker fight, he could wind up getting knocked out. Parker has nothing to fear in walking Hughie down, and I think he’ll be looking to take him out the way that he did the 6’7” Alexander Dimitrenko in 2016. Dimitrenko is probably a better puncher than Hughie, and Parker was fearless against him. It might be a little too for the 22-year-old Hughie Fury to be fighting an advanced fighter like Parker. Hughie is still very young, and he’s been fighting mostly journeyman level guys during his career. The way Hughie looked against Kassi, he’ll have problems with Parker’s size and power.
Parker is interested in fighting a unification match against WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder. That fight could happen in 2017. Wilder wants to fight IBF champion Anthony Joshua, but he might wind up facing Kubrat Pulev after his April 29 fight against Wladimir Klitschko. Parker vs. Wilder would be a great fight for the boxing world. It would be too big punchers facing each other. It’s always nice when the titles are unified because it makes things easier for the fans to know who the real champion is. We’re likely going to eventually have a unified champion at heavyweight by 2018. If it’s Joshua that emerges as the guy, then he could become a huge worldwide star the way that Lennox Lewis did.