Joseph Parker’s found himself something to do. Three weeks’ time, away in Texas. He’s gonna be fighting American heavyweight Shawndell Winters in his first fight since coasting past Alex Leapai in Philadelphia exactly eight months earlier... which itself was the his first fight since beating Alexander Flores six and a half months prior to that. It hasn’t been a busy time for Joe. It hasn’t been a very productive time either. But at least he’ll be getting back in the ring, finally., in a fight that will take place on the undercard of the Mikey Garcia vs Jesse Vargas welterweight battle.

Shawndell Winters first, he’s a 39 year old slugger out of Illinois who only turned pro in 2015 but has lately been making an underground name for himself as a knockout artist. He has a 13-2 record with 12 wins by KO though he took his career to new heights last year, with three bouts all against European opposition (two in Poland and one in Canada, his only pro fights outside of the USA). He was beaten by a controversial mixed decision against undefeated Nikodem Jezewski but wins over Sergiej Werwejko and especially the previously undefeated prospect Oleksandr Teslenko got his name out there in the division.

This dude only relatively recently made the step up from cruiserweight to heavyweight but is ranked 14 by the WBA. As far as his camp are concerned, he was robbed in the Jeweski fight by a hometown decision against him and then those next two fights were both upset wins that establish this guy as a serious opponent. But Joseph Parker will be by far the highest calibre dude he’s ever gotten into the ring with and this is what he had to say about the matter...

Shawndell Winters: “This is the biggest fight of my career and I am going to make it count. I am used to being the underdog. It's something that I thrive on and if Joseph Parker underestimates me, he's going to be in for a bad night because I am going in there to take him out.”

Righto then, chief. Biggest fight of his career. Underdog. Underestimate. Pretty clear to see the hierarchy of these two fighters.

It’s all part of the upward arc for Winters, fair enough. It’s just the Joseph Parker side of things where this doesn’t make a lot of sense. This, after all, is his second fight of a three-fight deal with Eddie Hearn and Matchroom Boxing. Obviously he was supposed to fight Dereck Chisora back in October but for that spider bite drama and before that he took on Alex Leapai after Eric Molina had backed out of a scheduled bout. There’s not really anything you can do about injuries however for Parker to have meant to be taking on a guy in Chisora with his second Matchroom fight, two well-known heavyweight contenders hoping to prove they’re worthy of a title shot, to now be in a situation where instead of trying to increase his stocks he’s mostly just trying not to lose any more ground... that’s not really ideal.

Nope, the ideal three fight structure woulda been a favoured first to get into some rhythm, an even second to push his case towards a title shot, then hopefully a title fight or an eliminator of some sort in the third, re-establishing himself towards the top of the division. Instead we’ve gotten this relatively nothing fight here and where does that leave him, even with a best case scenario early knockout, going into the third and final bout of his contract? Not lining up for Anthony Joshua, that’s for sure. That aching loss to Dillian Whyte came in July 2018. Since then this is what he’s done in a year and a half...

• Win by KO (3/12) vs Alexander Flores on 15 December 2018

• Win by TKO (10/12) vs Alex Leapai on 29 June 2019

And that’s it. At a time when the heavyweight division continues to grow and take shape, with Tyson Fury back in the mix now and a growing group of challengers amassing beneath Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder... Joseph Parker has done nothing of note for an extended period of time now. He’s falling out of sight. What’s more is that Winters could prove to be a dangerous opponent considering his recent form but as a guy without a lot of name recognition, that only means that the risk is far greater than the reward for Parker in this fight and that’s simply not where he should be right now.

Kevin Barry had a bit of a yarn about this situation in camp recently. To hear him say it, they thought they had Robert Helenius ready to go but that didn’t eventuate. Then Gerald Washington, Christian Hammer, and Erken Teper all declined the fight. And Mariusz Wach was close but ultimately decided against it too.

KB: “A lot of people look at the boxing business at the moment, especially with the streaming. There are a lot of opportunities opening up and I personally believe that a lot of these guys don't want to put themselves in a fight against a dangerous opponent like Joe unless it is for a lot of money. That has always been a bit of a problem in boxing. A lot of guys protect their image.”

I mean... that’s all true about protecting their images... but who’s protecting Joseph Parker’s image at the moment? It’s just hard to believe that a guy like Parker, who carries renown from being a former world champ but who has also shown he doesn’t have frightening knockout power at the top level, is the kind of guy that fellow would-be contenders like Helenius or Wach would be ducking. Parker is ranked in the top 12 by three separate organisations – there’s plenty to be gained by fighting him. Nah, that might be part of the story but it’s definitely not the whole story.

One thing that could be happening is they could be playing a wait and see game with the WBO title belt. Parker is ranked second by that organisation behind number one challenger Oleksandr Usyk. With Anthony Joshua extremely likely to fight Kubrat Pulev in the midyear in a mandatory defence of his IBF belt, there’s the possibility that he could be stripped of his WBO belt which would then potentially pit Usyk and Parker against each other for the vacancy... except that it’s in everybody other than Parker’s best interests to hang tight and get Joshua vs Usyk down the line instead. Way more money, way more global interest, etc. Anthony Joshua is arguably the most marketable boxer on the planet at the present time. Joseph Parker, as we’ve covered, is kinda stagnant these days. It’s a no-brainer even for the notoriously weird world of rival boxing associations.

So... yeah. Not sure how this Winters fight is supposed to set Joe up for the last bout on his contract. Not sure what Eddie Hearn even has planned for him. Not sure why nobody wants to fight him. Definitely not sure what Kevin Barry and David Higgins have in mind for his future. But fingers crossed we get a decent fight and an emphatic Joseph Parker win and then we can figure out the rest later, s’pose.

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