Monday 12 March 2018 12:42, UK
With two unbeaten records and three world heavyweight titles on the line when Anthony Joshua faces Joseph Parker in Cardiff in March, James Dielhenn explains why this is anything but a walkover win for the British star......
This engrossing world heavyweight title unification fight is coming at the right time for Joshua, but be warned - it also suits Parker.
A fellow unbeaten world title holder, over two years younger and hungry, stands in the way of 28-year-old Joshua's hunt for a third out of four belts. Parker is no lamb to the slaughter; he, like Joshua, does not know how to lose.
Someone will be dealt a harsh truth that they didn't know about themselves, and Joshua is accustomed to being the bearer of bad news to his challengers.
Parker is much more dangerous than Carlos Takam, Joshua's most recent victim, and benefits from the naivety of his youth and relative inexperience. What he doesn't know can't hurt him.
Parker is unbeaten in 24 fights, three for the WBO heavyweight title, but still requires a standout name on his record, much in the same way as Joshua's win over Wladimir Klitschko sky-rocketed him onto a higher platform. Parker will travel 11,500 miles across the world because he believes nobody has seen how good he really is.
Joshua won all 10 rounds of his last defence before finishing off Takam, who was feted for his toughness, but Parker will also trust his chin and will undoubtedly threaten more offensively.
Parker may also have smiled wryly at the memory of his own 12-round decision win against Takam 16 months ago - at the time his punch power was queried but, in hindsight, that was a more-than-respectable result for a 24-year-old prospect at the time.
At 6'4'' Parker isn't the biggest of heavyweights, as Joshua has noted himself, but he weighed just 7lbs less than his rival at their most-recent weigh-ins. Noise coming from the New Zealander's camp is that he will fight Joshua at a lighter weight to maximise his speed and agility. Their idea would be to bounce around Joshua for 12 rounds, with the ability to hold a shot and to give one back.
Parker still has plenty of questions to answer about the brutality of his punches because, so far, they haven't looked on the same level as Joshua's. Parker's last three fights have gone the distance but he would point to Hughie Fury's unwillingness to engage, Razvan Cojanu's short-notice call-up and Andy Ruiz Jr's canniness. Joshua would laugh at those reasons.
What's so difficult with fighting this little kid, who is doing press conferences talking a load of rubbish? I don't get it
Intrigue has been added by some genuine needle between two improving heavyweights who usually prefer to let their fists do the talking. Parker and his promoters have revelled at the memory of Joshua on the floor against Klitschko because their man has never felt the canvas in his amateur or pro career. They genuinely believe Joshua's 100 per cent KO ratio will come to a shuddering halt when he cannot hurt Parker, and that talk has riled Britain's world champion.
"What's so difficult with fighting this little kid, who is doing press conferences talking a load of rubbish? I don't get it, we work with people. It's just very unprofessional of them," Joshua said about Parker's stoking of the flames.
"Parker would take a bit more of a pasting, but I'd get to him. Deontay Wilder, I'd knock him out with one shot."
Suddenly the build-up is a throwback to Joshua and Dillian Whyte, the first and only time we have witnessed the IBF and WBA 'super' champion lose his cool inside and outside the ring. His promoter Eddie Hearn has warned that a "bad man" will replace the smiling, laughing and charming AJ.
The possibility of Joshua keeping the less physically imposing Parker at the end of his vicious right hand is very real. Joshua stands to hold three out of four world heavyweight titles if he wins, making a rare undisputed title holder a distinct possibility for 2018. Wilder, the WBC champion, has reigned longer, with 38 knockouts from 39 fights, and will feel Joshua breathing down his neck, should he first claim the WBO belt.
Parker needs the performance of a lifetime to win but he is at the right age, 26, to produce one. We don't know Parker's ceiling yet, which is the danger he brings, but crucially, the same is true of the ever-improving Joshua.
Watch the Anthony Joshua vs Joseph Parker world heavyweight title unification fight, from Principality Stadium, Cardiff, March 31, live and exclusive om Sky Sports Box Office.
