The way Joseph Parker tells it, we will not get to see a heavyweight super-fight between Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder – not while both men are carrying unbeaten records anyway. Parker, the unbeaten WBO champ, is set to face Joshua, the WBA and IBF ruler, this March; and the New Zealand warrior sees only one outcome: AJ being knocked out.
Speaking with Gareth A Davies of The Telegraph, Parker said again how it is his firm belief that Joshua has “a glass chin,” one he says he will “smash to bits” when the two collide in their three-belt unification showdown.
“All we have said is that Joshua has a glass chin. We know it, he knows it, everybody knows it, they just don’t talk about it,” Parker said. “We saw him get dropped by Wladimir Klitschko but he still had the heart to get up and finish the fight. I’ll give him that, but if I catch him and hurt him I’m not going to give him the chance to recover. I won’t be letting him off the hook. I’ll go in fast, I’ll go in hard, and I’ll go in for the kill.”
But has Parker got the sledgehammer punching power Klitschko possessed? Can Parker, no giant compared to Joshua and Klitschko, hurt AJ the way “Dr. Steel Hammer” did? Parker’s main strengths seem to be his overall toughness, his durability and his sheer physical strength and persistence – but a huge puncher he is not, or at least he has not thus far appeared to be.
Has Joshua really got a glass chin, or is he guilty of becoming “gassed” in a fight or fights? The monster punch that felled Joshua back in April of last year would very likely have put any big man over. The question is, will Joshua be there to be hit when he fights Parker, and even if he is, will Joshua have his chin tested as severely as he had it tested in his Wembley super-fight?
It’s going to be a very interesting fight, and if Joshua does run out of gas, he may well have to fight as hard as he did last April if he’s to win.
