09-26-2022, 10:41 AM
Joseph Parker v Joe Joyce: Today's mirror will remind Kiwi heavyweight of his tough fighting future
Duncan Johnstone
A brave Joseph Parker went down fighting in an 11th round knockout loss to Joe Joyce in Manchester.
Duncan Johnstone is a senior sports reporter at Stuff.
OPINION: Joseph Parker needs to be honest with himself as he ponders his future as a heavyweight boxer.
Parker’s path towards a second world heavyweight title has ended with him crumpled in the corner of the ring at the Manchester Arena, the victim of a vicious left hook from Britain’s Joe Joyce.
There was no disgrace in Parker suffering the first knockout defeat of his storied career. He gave as good as he got at times but was eventually overwhelmed by the sheer size and power of Joyce.
Joseph Parker took some heavy hits from Joe Joyce in his knockout loss in Manchester.
It’s a brutal reality check for Parker, whose career and fighting style appeared to be rejuvenated by his British trainer Andy Lee and the Tyson Fury connection.
Parker is a smart and still relatively young man who has always maintained he wouldn’t be in boxing for the long haul, that he would move on when the time was right, possibly by the age of 31, desperately keen to keep his faculties intact.
He’s 30 now and will need to weigh up tempting paydays against his long-term future on the back of this painful loss.
He has taken some heavy punishment in recent years, started by his dual losses to Anthony Joshua and Dillian Whyte in 2018.
His two high-energy fights against the brick wall that is Dereck Chisora and now this battering from Joyce must bring some perspective to his style and ambition.
Joyce proved that old boxing adage again that a good bigger man will beat a good smaller man.
With the heavyweight belts tied up by Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury, there’s no quick route to a title now for a pummelled Parker who has seen Joyce jump well ahead of him in the queue to the WBO belt, having secured the important interim title with this impressive win.
Parker mustn’t let himself become a gatekeeper to the division now, much the way Chisora and Carlos Takam have, turning themselves into punching bags who contenders must fight their way through to earn a bigger shot.
Parker is a worthy former WBO champion; a fighter who, with clever management, took his big chance magnificently against Andy Ruiz in December 2016 and has quite rightly maintained a presence in the title talk since then.
But Parker has bemusingly been a bit of a promoter’s nightmare in recent times, the money men taking extraordinary time to organise appropriate fights.
Those delays, complicated by the pandemic years, have inevitably eaten into Parker’s prime time and left him frustrated and short-changed.
There was exciting development and improvement between Chisora fights that promised plenty against Joyce but eventually fell short in terms of the real power required to take Parker’s game to the next level.
This knockout loss comes after Parker has been taken the distance too many times. Rounds are invaluable experience in this toughest of games, but they also take their toll and there’s no doubt that opponents have found Parker more hittable the longer he has plied his trade.
Once gifted with extraordinary evasive defence, he’s trading punches more regularly now and getting hit in order to deal out his own hits. It comes with age and having to constantly fight with a size disadvantage.
Joe Joyce and Joseph Parker were regularly trading blows in a high-powered slinging match.
There will be fights out there for Parker. Rematches with the likes of Whyte, Joshua, or Ruiz would rattle some pay-per-view tills. There’s also the elusive Deontay Wilder or the likes of Luis Ortiz.
But Parker’s sacrifices are bigger than ever these days, having to leave his wife and young family behind with his decision to ply his trade in Britain.
The punishment versus pleasure equation must get increasingly difficult. Parker only needs to look in the mirror over the next few days for evidence of that. It won’t be pretty.
Duncan Johnstone
A brave Joseph Parker went down fighting in an 11th round knockout loss to Joe Joyce in Manchester.
Duncan Johnstone is a senior sports reporter at Stuff.
OPINION: Joseph Parker needs to be honest with himself as he ponders his future as a heavyweight boxer.
Parker’s path towards a second world heavyweight title has ended with him crumpled in the corner of the ring at the Manchester Arena, the victim of a vicious left hook from Britain’s Joe Joyce.
There was no disgrace in Parker suffering the first knockout defeat of his storied career. He gave as good as he got at times but was eventually overwhelmed by the sheer size and power of Joyce.
Joseph Parker took some heavy hits from Joe Joyce in his knockout loss in Manchester.
It’s a brutal reality check for Parker, whose career and fighting style appeared to be rejuvenated by his British trainer Andy Lee and the Tyson Fury connection.
Parker is a smart and still relatively young man who has always maintained he wouldn’t be in boxing for the long haul, that he would move on when the time was right, possibly by the age of 31, desperately keen to keep his faculties intact.
He’s 30 now and will need to weigh up tempting paydays against his long-term future on the back of this painful loss.
He has taken some heavy punishment in recent years, started by his dual losses to Anthony Joshua and Dillian Whyte in 2018.
His two high-energy fights against the brick wall that is Dereck Chisora and now this battering from Joyce must bring some perspective to his style and ambition.
Joyce proved that old boxing adage again that a good bigger man will beat a good smaller man.
With the heavyweight belts tied up by Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury, there’s no quick route to a title now for a pummelled Parker who has seen Joyce jump well ahead of him in the queue to the WBO belt, having secured the important interim title with this impressive win.
Parker mustn’t let himself become a gatekeeper to the division now, much the way Chisora and Carlos Takam have, turning themselves into punching bags who contenders must fight their way through to earn a bigger shot.
Parker is a worthy former WBO champion; a fighter who, with clever management, took his big chance magnificently against Andy Ruiz in December 2016 and has quite rightly maintained a presence in the title talk since then.
But Parker has bemusingly been a bit of a promoter’s nightmare in recent times, the money men taking extraordinary time to organise appropriate fights.
Those delays, complicated by the pandemic years, have inevitably eaten into Parker’s prime time and left him frustrated and short-changed.
There was exciting development and improvement between Chisora fights that promised plenty against Joyce but eventually fell short in terms of the real power required to take Parker’s game to the next level.
This knockout loss comes after Parker has been taken the distance too many times. Rounds are invaluable experience in this toughest of games, but they also take their toll and there’s no doubt that opponents have found Parker more hittable the longer he has plied his trade.
Once gifted with extraordinary evasive defence, he’s trading punches more regularly now and getting hit in order to deal out his own hits. It comes with age and having to constantly fight with a size disadvantage.
Joe Joyce and Joseph Parker were regularly trading blows in a high-powered slinging match.
There will be fights out there for Parker. Rematches with the likes of Whyte, Joshua, or Ruiz would rattle some pay-per-view tills. There’s also the elusive Deontay Wilder or the likes of Luis Ortiz.
But Parker’s sacrifices are bigger than ever these days, having to leave his wife and young family behind with his decision to ply his trade in Britain.
The punishment versus pleasure equation must get increasingly difficult. Parker only needs to look in the mirror over the next few days for evidence of that. It won’t be pretty.