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WBO heavyweight titleholder Joseph Parker is now just weeks out from facing WBA and IBF titleholder Anthony Joshua on the road in Cardiff, Wales, and the 26-year-old New Zealander is perhaps playing a bit of mind games with his favored opponent, questioning Joshua’s stamina.
“When you watch him, when you see all the training, it’s like they are doing all this new training and it looks really hard, and it looks intense, and it looks the type of training that will prepare you for 12 rounds. But, in saying that, just maybe their team need to work on a few things. We know that our team has a good structure and a good training program that will allow us to fight 12 rounds, if we need it. But I’m not sure why he tires, that’s something he has to sort of figure out.”
Parker (24-0, 18 KO) won his vacant WBO belt in December 2016, beating Andy Ruiz Jr in a close fight in New Zealand, and has defended it two times. Last year, he beat Razvan Cojanu handily in May, and followed that up with a somewhat more debated majority decision victory over Hughie Fury in September.
Against Joshua (20-0, 20 KO), he’s facing a career-best opponent, and any little bit could help. If that includes making Joshua question himself, it’s probably worth a shot, but it’s nothing Joshua hasn’t heard before, either.