By Mark Eisner: Joseph Parker will be fighting Shawndell Winters on DAZN on the undercard of Mikey Garcia vs. Jessie Vargas on February 29 at The Ford Center at The Star, in Frisco, Texas. Dan Rafael is confirming that the 39-year-old American Winters (13-2, 12 KOs) will be the opponent for former WBO heavyweight champion Parker (26-2, 20 KOs) this month.

This isn’t a bad fight for Parker considering that his promoter Eddie Hearn scheduled it on less than a month notice. It’s unreasonable to assume that Hearn would be able to get an upper level contender to face a talented heavyweight like Parker with less than 4 weeks to go before the February 29 fight date.

Shawndell Winters will be good test for Parker

The hard hitting Parker, 28, and the Harvey, Illinois native Winters have agreed to terms, says Rafael. This should be an excellent fight for as long as it lasts. Winters recently defeated previously unbeaten prospect Oleksandr Teslenko (16-1, 12 KOs) by a 5th round knockout last September in Canada. If Parker takes Winters lightly, he could regret it.

That recent victory by Winters over Teslenko showed that he’s someone that you can’t take lightly, particularly Parker, who lacks aggression. Winters, a former cruiserweight, has won his last two fights since losing to Nikodem Jezewski (18-1-1, 9 KOs) by a narrow 8 round majority decision last April in Spodek, Katowice, Poland. Winters’ other career loss was a 2nd round knockout to Brian Howard in October 2017.

Parker has his last 2 fights since losing to Dillian Whyte and Anthony Joshua in consecutive defeats in 2018. Both of those losses for Parker came in the UK, and some of the officiating by the referees left a lot to be desired.

Parker couldn’t get at Joshua due to the referee Giuseppe Quartarone frequently keeping them separated. In Parker’s fight with Whyte, the referee Ian Lewis blew a call in the 2nd round in mistakenly giving Dillian credit for a knockdown from a clash of heads. The New Zealander Parker has looked great in his last two fights in beating Alex Leapai and Alexander Flores by knockouts.

Hearn giving Parker confidence building fights

Parker recently inked a contract with Matchroom Boxing USA promoter Eddie Hearn, who is looking to put him in big fights. He’s ranked #2 with the World Boxing Organization. Assuming gets passed Winters, he’ll likely face a tougher test in his second fight in 2020.

Hearn does have a lot of heavyweights in his Matchroom stable to put in with Parker, but he’s probably going to match him against guys outside of his promotion. Hearn does have good fighters he could match Parker if he wanted to. This is a short list of potential options for Parker in Hearn’s stable:

Dereck Chisora
Filip Hrgovic
Michael Hunter
Murat Gassiev
Dillian Whyte – rematch
Alexander Povetkin
Sergey Kuzmin

With Parker’s high ranking with the World Boxing Organization, Hearn will choose to put him in with fringe level contender in his next fight. Hearn can’t continue to match Parker against 2nd tier heavyweights if he wants to build his brand, and have fans take him seriously. Leapai and Flores were both low level opponents, as is Winters. Parker can’t afford to look passed Winters though.