Interim WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker (35-3, 23 KOs) isn’t being overlooked any longer. Saturday night’s win showed that this second run at age 32 is much more refined than his previous one. Parker earned a majority decision over Zhilei Zhang (26-2-1, 21 KOs) after being knocked down twice in the fight and showed a level of toughness that wasn’t previously recognized.
As mentioned before, Parker was knocked down twice in the fight with Zhang, but looking back, they seemed more like a flash knockdown than anything else. Parker didn’t appear in any real trouble of being stopped, or it could have been that he had a great poker face that night. Zhang was working his right jab and combinations throughout the first half of the fight, but the knockdowns may have given him too much confidence as in rounds 6-12, Zhang took his foot entirely off the pedal.
This is where Parker picked up the pace and landed some big shots on Zhang in certain sequences, which rocked the 40-year-old heavyweight. It was almost equivalent to Parker’s fight with Deontay Wilder in December, minus the knockdowns. Parker looked like the fresher fighter, and even with Zhang’s corner begging him for a knockout in the last round, he failed to land one punch, which cost him the fight.
Throughout the fight, it was hard to ignore Parker’s trainer, Andy Lee, and how he was quarterbacking the fight from the corner. He kept telling Parker to avoid getting hit with anything significant during the first 30 seconds of the round as Zhang would gas out. He did just that, and it would come in handy late in the fight when Parker needed all of the championship rounds to come out victorious.
Parker hired Lee under the recommendation of WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury. After losing the WBO heavyweight title to Anthony Joshua in 2018, things hadn’t been consistent with Parker, and he needed someone good in his corner who would set him on the right path. The team of Lee and Parker was formed in 2021, and since then, Parker has earned a record of (7-1, 2 KOs). This latest performance was the cherry on top, and now Parker heads into a contracted rematch against Zhang later this year with all of the momentum on his side.
Parker looks confident in the ring and isn’t intimidated by big punchers, as shown by the Wilder fight and now by Zhang. He has dramatically improved his conditioning and is fighting a much-calculated fight with more awareness of his punch selection. Parker is the most dangerous fighter in the heavyweight division, and a rematch with Anthony Joshua would be much desired if he could beat Zhang in the rematch. Until then, give Parker his flowers now, as Saturday night proved that his current run is much better than the first one he was on when he captured the WBO title.
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