Who is Joseph Parker?

This weekend is the fight we have all been waiting for Joshua V Parker. We all know about Anthony Joshua but it seems that people don’t know much about Joseph Parker. So in this post I will be looking at who he is and how he came to challenge for the unified championship of the world.

He is originally from New Zealand but he now lives and fights out of Las Vegas. He had a short but in impressive amateur career consisting of 66 fights. He made his professional debut in 2012 aged just 20 when he took on Dean Garmonsway a fight he won with a 2nd round knockout.

He then went on to win his next 4 fights by knockout, then just a year after turning professional he won his first professional title when he fought Afa Tatupu for the New Zealand National Boxing Federation title a fight he won with a knockout in the 2nd round. However this was the first time in his short career that he showed that he could take a punch.

Over the next 3 years he continued to develop as a fighter and he was taking on all comers, racking up a number of impressive wins and a number of titles along the way including the Pan Asian Boxing Association title, the WBO Oriental title, WBO Africa title, the Oriental Pacific Boxing Federation title, the WBA Oceania title and the WBC Eurasia Boxing Council title.

Then in 2016 he got his shot at the big one after Tyson Fury was forced to vacate the title after his impressive win over Wladimir Klitschko, on the 10th December he got the chance to fight Andy Ruiz Jr for the WBO heavyweight championship of the world in his home country of New Zealand. This fight was only the second fights in the history of boxing were New Zealand hosted a fight for one of the main world titles.

Although the fight was fought at a good pace neither really took control of the fight however the better quality work came from Parker and he won the fight by majority decision on the judges’ cards 114-114 and 115-113 on the other two, and in the process he made boxing history as the first New Zealand born boxer to win the heavyweight title.

After winning the title he was meant to fight Hughie Fury as his mandatory challenger but Fury pulled out 2 weeks before the fight with a back injury, so he took on Razvan Cojanu. From the first bell he took control of the fight out boxing Cojanu for 12 hard rounds, winning a unanimous decision 119-108 and 117-110 on the other two.

As you can see yes he dominated the fight but it wasn’t a great performance ok he did have to deal with a late change of opponent, but if he wants to be one of the best heavyweights in the world he needs to be taking out the likes of Razvan Cojanu in impressive fashion. The only reason he’s still getting big fights is because he’s a world champion, and all the other heavyweights want to win or unify the championship.

On the 23rd October 2017 he took on Hughie Fury and he won another majority decision but as you can see it was another lack lustre performance, with many people still believing that Fury won the fight. In fact I had Fury 3 rounds up on my card.

I hope this has helped you understand what sort of fighter he is and what sort of fight we can look forward to on Saturday. Now at this point I know what your thinking can he beat Joshua you can decide that for yourselves I will be posting a fight night preview that will be posted on Friday.

Please comment below and let me know your thoughts.