Joseph Parker arrived in Riyadh with a smile that suggested he knew something you didn’t, like a man about to pull off the perfect con.
Genial Joe is one of the most engaging men in boxing, but don’t let the charm fool you. He’s fighting IBF champion Daniel Dubois on Saturday at Kingdom Arena for the only heavyweight belt not wrapped around Oleksandr Usyk’s waist. A win would make him a two-time heavyweight champion, a rare accomplishment still despite the proliferation of belts.
As he waved at the crowd and walked over for an interview, he looked about as nervous as a broke guy about to marry the richest woman in the world.
“He’s enjoying every moment of this,” Parker trainer Andy Lee said.
Watching how preternaturally calm and relaxed Parker seemed, it evoked memories of Evander Holyfield in the days leading up to his Nov. 9, 1996, bout with Mike Tyson. Two years earlier, there were concerns about Holyfield’s medical fitness to fight. A stiff heart, the doctors called it.
The Mayo Clinic cleared him, but plenty still thought it was a bad idea. He was fighting Tyson, after all. That fight came just months after Holyfield looked downright blah against blown-up light heavyweight Bobby Czyz.
Holyfield looked bad, like the 2022 Pittsburgh Pirates. On this night, though, Czyz was the 62 Mets
Before Holyfield could get his shot, Tyson had to get through imposing-looking challenger Bruce Seldon. That fight barely lasted long enough for the ring announcer to sit down. Tyson made Seldon melt like Frosty the Snowman in the spring thaw.
Tyson winged a shot at a terrified Seldon — maybe it grazed him, maybe it missed entirely. Either way, Seldon went down on cue, and the fight was over.
Tyson had a first-round TKO and serious momentum heading into the Holyfield bout two months later as a 25-1 favorite.
Holyfield displayed the calm that Parker did on Tuesday. Many jokes were made at the time about Holyfield’s then-wife being a doctor of pain management.
Evander’s gonna need that, they yukked, barely giving the man a shot. At every turn, Holyfield shrugged off the doubters and skeptics and insisted he win. He was a true believer, preaching from the Book of Holyfield.
Mark Robinson/Matchroom
Trainer Andy Lee (L) has Joseph Parker hitting on all cylinders.
Of course, he went on to TKO Tyson in the 11th round to regain the title. Parker’s trying to do that on Saturday against Dubois, who won the IBF belt Usyk was forced to surrender by stopping Filip Hrgovic. Dubois isn’t as feared as Tyson was back then — Who was? — but he’s been on a roll and plenty dangerous.
Dubois stopped Anthony Joshua his last time out in five one-sided rounds, whipping the former unified champion like a frantic jockey urging a fading thoroughbred in the Derby.
Parker at his best could never match Holyfied at his, though few in history could. But as he gets a crack at a second reign as heavyweight champ, it’s a different Parker than the guy who lost his WBO belt to Joshua in a desultory decision in 2018.
The Joshua loss wasn’t that hard to understand, or to take. Joshua was at his peak then, seemingly poised for a lengthy reign atop the sport’s glamor division. Parker’s 2022 knockout loss to Joe Joyce, though, was different.
That left a bad taste — like an unsuspecting American slathering Vegemite on toast, thinking it was Nutella.
The critics had a field day, but Parker had been around long enough to know that for heavyweights who can punch like Joyce, a fight is never over until the final bell. He wasn’t down on himself.
Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “No one could make you feel inferior without your consent,” and Parker was bound and determined not to feel inferior simply because he’d suffered a surprising loss to an underrated puncher.
His secret, he said, is simple. He follows Lee’s instructions and works closely with George Lockhart, his nutritionist and strength and conditioning coach.
“I listen to Andy, I listen to George and I apply what I have been learning in camp and in training in the ring,” Parker said. “It’s pretty simple. Go in there and believe in yourself. I’m going to prove to everyone that you can always come back from a loss.”
Of the many journalists covering Tyson-Holyfield in 96, only two picked Holyfield: Ron Borges, then of the Boston Globe and the late Bruce Keidan of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. No one else believed, except Holyfield trainer Lou Duva, who dumped a huge wad on his guy at 25-1.
Holyfield, though, believed, and he went out and slayed the biggest dragon in the land.
That’s the challenge facing Parker right now. Dubois is powerful and uber-confident.
The writer and theologian C.S. Lewis said, “We are who we believe we are.” Parker says he believes. Maybe that’s all that matters.
He still wears that smile — the one that suggests he knows something we don’t.
Mark Robinson/Matchroom
Joseph Parker is 35-3 with 23 KOs.