After defeating Hughie Fury last weekend in Manchester, Joseph Parker is now a name that people recognise in the UK. The Kiwi fighter didn’t deliver on his KO promise but retained his WBO World heavyweight title nonetheless.
“They’ll all want to fight Joe even more now. They will underestimate him, because Hughie is the sort of guy that you’ll take the distance,” said Parker’s promoter David Higgins of Duco Event in an interview with Sky Sports.
Parker and his people have high hopes of landing a fight against Anthony Joshua sometime next year. Parker even called Joshua out after the Fury fight.
“Joshua is the sort of fight, a unification fight, that we could look at next year, provided both guys keep winning,” told the promoter.
The most likely plan for Parker is to face the winner of David Haye versus Tony Bellew after a tune up fight in December.
“After our first defence in Britain, we might be looking at other parts of the world for the end of the year, then returning to the UK next year. Bellew is fighting Haye, and so we could look at the winner of that,” Higgins told.
Though Higgins and Parker have one issue that might cause a severe delay to the Joshua fight.
And that is WBC World heavyweight champion, Deontay Wilder.
Promoter Eddie Hearn has confirmed on many occasion that Matchroom is looking to get a fight against Wilder simply because the consensus is that the American is a far bigger draw than Parker at the moment.
“His [Parker] stock has just plummeted,” commented Hearn when asked about the WBO champion’s performance against mandatory challenger Fury.
“It was one of the worst heavyweight fights I’ve ever seen.”
Still, New Zealand promoter Higgins is hopeful that a summer fight can be organised between Parker and Joshua at Wembley.
“It sounds amazing. We would love to be part of an event like that,” summarised Higgins.
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