Boxing is in a real slump this year, with few major fights and far less compelling bouts than usual, and so the prospect of a serious and intriguing heavyweight contest between Joseph Parker and Fabio Wardley at the O2 Arena brings a measure of relief to the beleaguered business. The winner will almost certainly face Oleksandr Usyk, the world champion, next year. In contrast, the loser is likely to lament the inevitable erosion of the hard-won plaudits he had gained.<\/p>\n
Danger and risk surround this clash. Parker is on a hot streak since his last defeat, to Joe Joyce, three years ago. The New Zealand veteran, who won the WBO world title<\/a> in 2016, has been rejuvenated by his switch of trainers to the inspirational Andy Lee. He has won six fights in a row, earning particular acclaim for the poised way in which he crushed Deontay Wilder<\/a>, Zhilei Zhang and Martin Bakole.<\/p>\n Wardley has steadily built his unbeaten record over 20 bouts, while displaying astonishing power against Frazer Clarke in a rematch<\/a> last year and, this summer, when he knocked out Justis Huni with one chilling punch. But Clarke took Wardley to hell and back when their brutal first fight ended in a draw \u2013 and Huni had an unassailable lead on all three scorecards before he was felled in the 10th round.<\/p>\n The low-key appeal of both men is enhanced by the fact that they now stand on the verge of a world title shot. Yet both are vulnerable. This is Parker\u2019s 40th fight and, apart from three losses, he has been dropped multiple times by different opponents. He always gets up but Wardley hits harder than anyone he has faced \u2013 with the exception of Wilder who looked a shell of a knockout artist when Parker swept to a one-sided points victory in December 2023.<\/p>\n Wardley, a former white-collar slugger<\/a> who only started boxing when he was 20, had no amateur experience and has always had to overcome doubts about his comparatively limited skills. But he is also within sight of a world title challenge.<\/p>\n Frank Warren, the promoter, believes \u201cthis is the most significant fight, at the moment, in the heavyweight division. These two guys have stepped up when neither of them needed to make this fight. Joe Parker is the WBO interim champion and they have already ordered Usyk to fight him, but [the Ukrainian] was injured. Joseph wants to fight anyway.<\/p>\n \u201cFabio is also in a fantastic position and he only had to wait for his time. He said \u2018No.\u2019 He wanted to fight \u2013 and against Parker because it gives him a chance to jump the queue.\u201d<\/p>\n Parker, who turns 34 in January, said: \u201cThis is all or nothing. I am not thinking about losing. I respect my opponent and what he has done and how he has prepared for this fight. But I am on a different level and I am going to show it on Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n Wardley will be 31 in December and he said: \u201cIt is a massive night for the pair of us. It is obviously the biggest fight of my career and the biggest fight of my life. But every time I step up I rise to the occasion. Saturday will be no different. The separation between where Joe is and where people think I am has been a common theme throughout my career.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend\u2019s action<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cHe has been going around the block for a long time, with a lot of fights on his record. By no means is he an old man but he has been in the sport for a long time and had some heavy fights. I\u2019ve been in a few wars myself and I know they put miles on the clock. He has been in a lot more of those than me.\u201d<\/p>\n But the suspicion remains that Parker will be too seasoned, and too skilful, for Wardley. He should win a bruising battle with the conviction that he is next in line for Usyk \u2013 still the world\u2019s best heavyweight by a comfortable distance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Boxing is in a real slump this year, with few major fights and far less compelling bouts than…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-238490","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-boxing","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}