By Scott Gilfoid: Joseph Parker’s trainer Kevin Barry couldn’t help but notice how Anthony Joshua has been looking past the fight against his guy towards lucrative matches against Tyson Fury and WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder.
Barry thinks Joshua (20-0, 20 KOs) is making a big mistake in thinking he’s got an easy mark on his hands in WBO heavyweight champion Parker (24-0, 18 KOs). Barry sees the 28-year-old Joshua finding out the hard way that he made a colossal blunder of epic proportions of looking past Parker.
Barry shouldn’t be surprised that Joshua is already thinking about big money fights against Wilder and Fury. For all intents and purposes, Joshua is basically drunk on success from the fodder that his promoter, the wily Eddie Hearn has been feeding him since he turned pro 5 years ago in 2013. When you feed a fighter like Joshua fodder opposition, then of course he’s going to be looking past talents like Parker.
Right now, Joshua’s feet aren’t touching the ground. All the praise that he’s being given by Hearn and his legion of boxing fans, I’m surprised he’s not sporting a royal red robe and crown as he moves about. Joshua has had it easy, and I think he firmly believes all the hype that is being said about him. Parker is likely already viewed as a win for Joshua on his resume.
”Joshua is already talking about Tyson Fury and Wilder – this is laughable to me,” Barry said to the Express.co.uk. “If he’s really looking past Joseph Parker, he is in for a huge, rude awakening.”
Joshua might be counting the money already that he’ll be getting for the Wilder and Fury fights. Joshua is on record talking about he’s going to be the first billion dollar boxer. If Joshua’s mind is fixated on him tabulating the loot that he’s bringing in for the future, then it’s no surprise that he’s not thinking about Parker. Joshua could have forgotten that boxing is a sport.
Joshua wants to add Parker’s WBO heavyweight strap to his collection of titles. Joshua has the IBF and WBA belts right now. He wants to win the last 2 straps, the WBC and WBO titles, in 2018. Wilder has the WBC heavyweight title. The negotiations still haven’t been completed yet for the Joshua-Parker fight, but Top Rank promoter Bob Arum feels that the fight will get done soon. There’s talk of the negotiations being 95 percent completed. I don’t think that means a whole lot. Even when a fight is 95 percent done, it can still fail to happen, especially when you get a fighter that is stubborn and completely intractable. I hope we’re not getting that with Joshua. That would be a pity. The fight needs to get done already.
“Joseph Parker is the most relaxed fighter I have ever worked with as far as controlling his emotions,” said Barry. ”Whether it’s two, five, ten, or eighty thousand people, it is going to be the same guy that walks to the ring, the same routine that we’ve had for the last five years.”
Fighting in front of a bunch of cheering boxing fans can definitely help Joshua get a second wind temporarily. It’s obviously better for Joshua than it is for Parker to be fighting in front of a big pro-Joshua crowd. It doesn’t matter if Parker shuts out the wailing Joshua fans. If Joshua is able to gain energy from the fans for short-term adrenaline boosts, like we saw in the later rounds of his last 2 fights against Carlos Takam and Wladimir Klitschko, then that could hurt Parker. He needs to expect that from Joshua. AJ is probably going to gas out early on in the fight. But if the crowd starts yelping in the later rounds, Joshua could come on strong for a minute or two before he gasses out again. If Parker is ready for the occasional late round adrenaline bursts from Joshua, then he can negate it or make work against him by planting his feet and nailing AJ with a straight right to the head as he mindlessly bum rushes him. It would be similar to how Juan Manuel Marquez knocked out Manny Pacquiao in the 6th round of their fight in 2012. Pacquiao charged straight into Marquez’s right hand.