Joseph Parker is hoping to pull off yet another upset when he faces WBO interim heavyweight champion Zhilei Zhang next month, but the New Zealander has admitted that he had little choice but to accept the demands of a rematch clause from his opponent.
Parker lost his world title to Anthony Joshua back in 2016, but revitalised his career in 2021 when he appointed Andy Lee as his new lead trainer.
Since then, Parker has gone 9-1, losing out to Joe Joyce but scoring a career-best win over Deontay Wilder in his most recent outing on the Day of Reckoning card in December.
Whilst Parker couldn’t crack the tough chin of Joyce, Zhang could, and twice knocked out the Brit to claim the WBO interim title. Now, Zhang faces Parker with a title shot looming for the victor, and the latter told talkSPORT details about the one-way rematch clause.
“To fight Zhang and win and then fight Zhang again at the end of the year, win again and I’ll be free to fight anyone else.
“I see where they are coming from, they are trying to protect what Zhang has [position as mandatory] and they did the same thing to him when he fought Joe Joyce. So, I’ll have to beat him twice in order to move on and fight for the heavyweight championship of the world.
“It was ‘take the fight with the rematch clause, or otherwise we will give it to someone else’, so I was sort of cornered, but I am happy that I took the fight and I am looking forward to it.”
The heavyweight duo will meet on the undercard of Joshua’s showdown with Francis Ngannou on March 8th, which will be available to watch on both DAZN PPV and Sky Sports Box Office.