Joseph Parker’s Next Opponent Is His Last Opponent: Prepare for Parker vs Chisora II
After his win over Junior Fa back in February, Joseph Parker spoke about getting back to his old rhythms of fighting 3-4 times per year. Something he felt contributed to his rise up the rankings around 2016. Money where your mouth is, he backed that up with a scrap against Derek Chisora less than three months later despite having to travel halfway around the world during a pandemic to do so and despite swapping trainers in that short window too.
He beat Chisora. Rallied back from a knockdown seven seconds into the fight to win on the cards. But the decision was considered controversial with many people, Chisora included (obviously), and them the heavyweight division itself was set back by at least six months when Tyson Fury vs Anthony Joshua got canned, upending the plans of every contender in the division. So here we are. It’s Joseph Parker vs Derek Chisora II. The rematch.
December 18 is seven and a half months after the first fight between the pair so while it will be JP’s third fight of 2021 - first time he’s done that since fighting four times in 2016 – it’s not exactly the quick turnaround that he was hoping for. Especially not when he’s fighting a guy on the exact same recovery timetable as he is. You know, being as how they fought each other last and all.
But this rematch had felt like a probability from the very moment Derek Chisora stood in front of a microphone and whined about how badly he was robbed by the decision (remember that he threatened to pull out of the fight beforehand over the ring walk arrangements – he had a victim mentality from the start). Somewhat awkwardly, Parker’s new trainer Andy Lee was really sympathetic to Chisora as well. So when Parker was then asked about a rematch he magnanimously said: yeah, absolutely, I’d be keen for that.. Must’ve felt like he was standing there all alone despite having won the damn bout.
There were other options out there for Joseph Parker. Joe Joyce is one who was mentioned several times. 35 year old British heavyweight who had a glittering amateur career, including winning a Rio 2016 Olympic silver medal, and who is 13-0 as a pro having delivered Daniel Dubois his first loss late last year and most recently beating Carlos Takam by TKO in July. That didn’t happen. Dillian Whyte would have been the ideal opponent from JP’s point of view, a chance to override the most regrettable result in his career, but nope that fella just booked in a scrap with Otto Wallin on October 30. Whyte also had negotiations with Jermaine Franklin (20-0) and Chris Arreola (38-7-1) before agreeing with Wallin (22-1), whose one defeat was a close and spirited battle with Tyson Fury in 2019. Whyte regained the WBC interim title with a knockout of Alexander Povetkin in March so he’s angling for a go at the winner of Fury vs Joshua down the line.
Parker doesn’t have that mandatory challenger impetus right now, even though he’s top-5 ranked in three of the four major organisations. That leaves him having to shove his way through the crowd, still a few more wins away from competing for a title belt again. Which may not be the worst thing for him given the division is in limbo for now as we await that unification bout between Fury and Joshua. A bout which in turn depends on them each getting through their next fights, both of which they’ll be favourites in but neither of which will come easy:
Anthony Joshua (24-1) vs Olekxandr Usyk (18-0) on September 25
Tyson Fury (30-0-1) vs Deontay Wilder (42-1-1) on October 9
Looking around the traps, there are guys like Andy Ruiz, Filip Hrgovic, Luis Ortiz, Agit Kabayel, Dominic Breazeale, etc. all of whom have no locked-in fights on the horizon. But none of those possibilities come with the tasty history/rivalry (aka marketability) of Parker vs Chisora II. Andy Ruiz would come close-ish but that’d mean either fighting in England (where Parker’s trainer and promoter are based) with no English homer for the crowd to cheer for, or it’d mean fighting in America/Mexico where Parker doesn’t have much of a profile. But he’s a well known name in the United Kingdom, hence it’s destination Manchester again. Put frankly, there’s more money in this matchup than there would’ve been in any of the others and even though it feels like an unnecessary risk for Parker to fight a guy he’s already beaten... he was gonna have to fight someone on a similar level anyway. Might as well be a bloke he knows he can beat.
On that topic, let’s talk about their first fight now, shall we? Boxing is a subjective sport so there’s always some debate anytime there’s a decision and Parker is a fighter who lacks the elite power that so many have at the top of his division, and it’s power which tends to sway the crowd in a fighter’s favour. It’s not a coincidence that Carlos Takam, Andy Ruiz, and Hughie Fury all made similar claims of victory after losing to Joseph Parker, same as to Chisora did.
In other words, people often see what they want to see. Parker was a deserved winner over twelve rounds but the door to debate was left open as because got swamped by the early narrative. He was dropped before he’d even thrown a punch in anger and that left him fighting from behind, playing catch-up. It gave the home crowd false belief that an early knockout was on the way. That wasn’t ever likely to be the case. Still, Chisora came out swinging hard and he dominated the early rounds even aside from the knockdown, with Parker looking oddly hesitant. At best JP took one of the opening five rounds.
But then 37 year old Chisora got tired. The arms got heavy. The punches stopped flowing at the same rate. And Parker’s superior fitness roared into action as he chipped away with good, clever boxing. Rounds 7-11 were all pretty safe Parker rounds... leaving the decision up to the results of rounds 6 & 12. The judges gave it a split decision win for Parker. In the heat of the arena it’s easy to overreact to the dramatic early stages but every round counts for the same points and Parker racked just enough up to win. Read this for a much more detailed recap of the fight.
The thing about the rematch is that Chisora feels like he was hard done by and deserves another shot... but Parker is the fighter with way more room to improve. Remember that he was in his first bout with Andy Lee as his trainer after splitting from Kevin Barry whom he’d worked with his entire pro career ‘til then. That’s not a transition that was gonna show immediate results, especially not after a shortened training camp due to covid and the quick turnaround after the Junior Fa fight.
A second fight against the same guy, with twelve rounds of evidence to study, is surely gonna unleash this partnership much more vividly (this is the first time that Parker has fought a rematch as a pro). They can specifically look at what worked and what didn’t last time and make those corrections against an experienced fighter whose style and habits are well known (granted, Chisora will be on his third trainer in three fights here with David Coldwell now in his corner). The fact that it was close last time had a lot to do with a random early knockdown and Parker’s slow start. Will those factors be repeated in fight two? Probably not. Which skews things further towards Parker thus he should be the favoured dude when the bookies odds emerge.
The other thing that’s happened since then is that Joseph Parker might have caught covid. Or maybe he didn’t. Tyson Fury definitely did, causing his third fight against Wilder to be delayed from July to October. Parker had been training out of the same gym as Fury, as he often does considering Andy Lee is also Fury’s assistant trainer. Fury was the one who recommended Andy Lee to Parker in the first place. Word was that Parker was one of a number of others in Fury’s circle who also caught the ‘rona... yet only a few days later Joe was seen out at UFC 264 in Las Vegas. Parker denied the covid claim. David Higgins also spoke to a few media outlets confirming that he’d tested negative. But Bob Arum has since said that it was all chat from those blokes: “Parker denied it, but he had it”.
Soon afterwards Parker returned to Aotearoa where he’s been chipping away with his lockdown lip-synch vids and keeping in good shape ever since. He’s due to fly out to Vegas soon to join up with Andy Lee for Fury-Wilder 3 and then it’ll be off to Manchester for his own battle. Probably won’t be home again ‘til after Christmas. But a consolidating win over Derek Chisora would go a long way towards putting him in contention for a title shot within 12-24 months. That’s the target. That’s the plan.
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