Joseph Parker has often trained alongside Tyson Fury but has now admitted that he could one day fight his old friend.
Parker had one of the biggest wins of his career in 2023, and while he is a former champion who won a world title down under against Andy Ruiz several years ago, his showing on December 23 in Saudi Arabia was arguably more impressive and did more for his profile.
It saw him dominate the fearsome American puncher Deontay Wider across 12 rounds of boxing. He never allowed Wilder to settle, threw increasingly big shots of his own and constantly pushed ‘The Bronze Bomber’ back, eventually running out a wide points winner.
His effective reward for that is a huge fight against another towering heavyweight this weekend on the undercard of Anthony Joshua versus Francis Ngannou.
It comes against Chinese heavyweight Zhilei Zhang, who also had a big 2023 by twice stopping Brit Joe Joyce in destructive knockout fashion in back-to-back fights and has promised he will ‘take Parker to hell.’
Now, speaking to Boxing Social, Parker was asked if he would ever face his campmate Fury.
“If the fight was to be talked about between Tyson and I, if Tyson knew it was going to change my life and look after my family for the rest of my life, he would do it just to help me and we’d have a great fight.
“He’s one of those guys who does things to help other guys out. We have great sparring sessions. Tyson is a beast. It’d be a great storyline.”
First of all, Parker must get through Zhang and then anything could happen.
