Deontay Wilder of United States and Joseph Parker of New Zealand face-off during the Day Of Reckoning Press Conference. Photo: Tom Dulat
Analysis - Not much about Joseph Parker's latest return to the ring has been orthodox. Thanks to the now inevitable shift of sports towards taking advantage of the unfathomable wealth found in the Arab Gulf States, Parker now finds himself in line for a massive pay day against an extremely high-profile opponent.
This Sunday, Parker takes on American Deontay Wilder in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, co-main eventing the Day Of Reckoning event. It's a fight he's taken on six weeks' notice, on a date when he'd normally be sorting out his family's Christmas presents.
The same could be said of the whole card, which are all heavyweight/light heavyweight match ups. It includes a co-main event of Anthony Joshua and Otto Wallin, a WBA light heavyweight title fight between Dmitry Bivol and Lyndon Arthur, while Kiwi Junior Fa fights Cuban Frank Sanchez. All the big names feature on the absolutely unhinged promo video for the event, featuring the fighters in some sort of zombie apocalypse.
Really, this is a fight for Parker that should be having far more time to promote. In comparison, the first reports of what turned out to be his fight against Joshua in front of 80,000 people at Cardiff's Principality Stadium came around six months before it actually happened.
But, despite the short notice and odd timing, this is boxing and money talks. Parker stands to make around NZD $10m, which is a far cry from the sort of pay day he was probably expecting at the start of 2023. It's important to remember where the former WBO World Champion came from to really get some context around this fight and what it potentially means.
Parker's record is currently 33-3 and it's tempting to think of his 11-year long career in two parts: before and after his run as world champion. What happened before is fairly well known, but as the South Aucklander moves into his 30s and starts to think about just how much longer he wants to stay in the fight game, what's happened since is an intriguing tale.
"He's at his best. I'm at my best. This is the perfect time for the fight. There are going to be no excuses. Whoever wins is the best on the day," Parker said before attempting to defend his title against Joshua in 2018. Unfortunately, Joshua proved that he was best on the day with a comfortable points victory. That sent Parker into a bit of a wilderness in the heavyweight division, a place that he's only really just finding a way out of with this Wilder fight.
Ironically, Joshua and Wilder was the fight that everyone wanted to see in 2019, but it never ended up happening. Instead, Joshua shockingly lost his belts to Andy Ruiz before taking them back in a rematch and then dropping two fights in a row to Oleksandr Usyk, while Wilder kept racking up wins and knockouts before finally facing Tyson Fury in an incredible trilogy over three years.
The past five years haven't been so high profile for Parker, though. He's suffered two more defeats, at the hands of Dillian Whyte and Joe Joyce, with the latter seemingly consigning him to the backwaters of the division as a perennial tune up man. Parker has had three wins since, although Jack Massey, Faiga Opelu and Simon Kean are hardly the most respected names. It felt like he was simply going through the motions as a permanent part of Fury's training set up, then this Wilder opportunity has come about.
Joe Joyce punches Joseph Parker during the Vacant WBO Interim World Heavyweight Championship fight in 2022. Photo: Getty Images / Alex Livesey
Really, it's probably more accurate to split Parker's career between having Kevin Barry as his trainer and now Andy Lee, which has helped build the professional relationship with Fury.
It's not the first large scale boxing event in Saudi Arabia and it certainly won't be the last, but it's also definitely the only place in the world right now that can put together a card like this on such short notice. What will it mean for the quality of the fight night itself? Well, that remains to be seen, although the match up between Parker and Wilder is a distinct clash of styles no matter how long they would have had to prepare.
They're not the only ones with a limited prep time, either. This was not a match anyone really saw coming other than some highly ambitious promotors with access to a lot of Saudi money, so it certainly doesn't feel like the usual build up to such a high-profile Joseph Parker fight.