I’ m ready again, I’ve fought Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder but ‘The Juggernaut’ gave me my toughest fight
Joseph Parker has shared the ring with a who’s who of great heavyweights from his generation – but one stood out above the rest.
The Kiwi burst onto the scene by beating Andy Ruiz Jr for the WBO heavyweight title in 2016.
He held onto the red and gold strap for just under two years before he ran into Anthony Joshua in a WBA, WBO and IBF unification clash at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.
Despite a spirited performance, Parker was outboxed by AJ over the distance and lost via unanimous decision.
In the years that followed, Parker traded wins and losses with Britain’s best, beating Derek Chisora (twice) and losing to Dillian Whyte and Joe ‘The Juggernaut’ Joyce.His defeat at the hands of the latter marked his first, and to date only, knockout loss of his 38-fight career (35-3),
So it is perhaps no surprise that Parker named Joyce as his toughest opponent.
Speaking about the fight during an interview on Carl Froch’s YouTube channel, he said: “It wasn’t a great night for me, it was tough.
“Leading into the fight I got real sick. Very bad. I shouldn’t have fought.
“He’s not the fastest and doesn’t move the quickest. [I lost because of] the pressure and I wasn’t healthy. It was tough.”
Joyce wore Parker down over 11 rounds before uncorking a massive left hook to close the show.
It was a huge setback for the Auckland puncher, who was riding a six-fight winning streak at the time.
However, Parker has since revived his career with a pair of notable wins over Deontay Wilder and Zhilei Zhang, which have catapulted him into an IBF heavyweight title fight with Daniel Dubois on February 22.
Parker won the WBO ‘interim’ belt by beating Zhang, although he will be stripped of that title when the opening bell sounds for his next outing, per the major sanctioning body’s rules.
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“When you have an interim champion, we don’t unify an interim champion with a legitimate champion from another organization, that is our policy,” the newly appointed WBO president Gustavo Olivieri told talkSPORT.com last month.
“So what we’ve done in this case is we’ve advised Queensberry Promotions, that we have no objection to Parker fighting for the IBF title.
“None at all. It is a great fight. We have a great relationship with the IBF, I’m very close to its president Darryl Peoples.
“But since we have this policy, he [Parker] would have to relinquish the title.
“But once the bell rings, signifying the commencement of the fight, the title should be declared vacant automatically.”
