The most important fact of tonight’s fight between the champion WBA/IBF/IBO slugger, Anthony Joshua, and New Zealand’s WBO belt-holder, the nimble but less-favored Joseph Parker, may not be the fight itself, although it’s safe to say that most of Europe, all of Britain, and large chunks of the States are hoping for a spectacular, technical, cliff-hanger for the ages. It’s looking like it could be a lesser fight than that, what with Joshua calling for a KO/TKO quite early, and the odds on Parker doing a passable imitation of a pre-global-warming glacier, frozen high. But all of that remains to be seen as the evening wears on in the ring.
Despite that flotsam, the most important thing about Joshua/Parker remains its towering sporting value, and the fact of the pressure its result will bring to the sport. No matter what the result, at the end of the evening, four heavyweight boxing belts should be borne by one man. The belts’ varying degrees of recency and breadth of reach ? which is to say, their legitimacy ? don’t really matter. The sum of belts is far greater than that of any individual girdle. And this boxing axiom must be paid homage: where there are four heavyweight belts, there’s an ever-increasing likelihood of a fifth. It’s fervently to be hoped that those belts will be swiftly pitted in a contest that will put the fifth, and arguably most important, heavyweight belt in the world, that of the WBC, currently in the hands of Deontay Wilder, from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in play.
Not bad for a Saturday night’s work in Cardiff, Wales.
Today, we have the splendid fortune in having the Cornerman ?, a native of Great Britain, flying into Cardiff for the fight. The Cornerman ?, who is, like many, generally pro-Joshua and will be aligning his bets thusly, will enjoy a sky-box-suite in Principality Stadium with an array of gentlemen aficionadi for the entire card. But before we re-engage the Cornerman ? to help us parse the featured heavyweights, as he so engagingly and generously did for us during Wilder/Ortiz, first, the odds.
The fight is being closely watched and heavily betted in Vegas, and the odds we quote there will be from Bovada. Among our favorite hard-bitten London bookmakers, we’ll be quoting Ladbrokes.
For the moment, Bovada’s keeping it simple, to win:
Anthony Joshua: -700
Joseph Parker: +450
Source: Bovada, 31/3/2018
True to the notion that it is a fight between representatives of British Commonwealth (read: nations within the former Empire), Ladbrokes have sliced the fight a bit more finely. The silent-but-deadly Kiwi/Samoan, Parker, is going of at 7/1 for winning it by a KO/TKO/DQ. The favorite Joshua is at 1/3 for that method of winning, which is to say, a rotten price, but the money in London is looking for this result. To win by decision or technical decision, Ladbrokes hold Parker at 14/1 and Joshua at 9/2. In the rounds betting, the London money tells us that it holds Parker in enough esteem to posit that the fight is far likelier to end after Round 2 (1/10) than it is likely to end within the first two rounds (11/2). Where the rounds betting approaches even money is where London thinks the fight will end, in or about rounds 6, 7, and 8. The odds of the fight going the distance are put at 10/3, which are acceptable for a talented underdog such as Parker.
To the Cornerman, then.
So, we take it that you and your cohort in the box tonight are staunch, jolly Parker fans looking for a KO early.
Cornerman ?: In response to that veiled slur, I will immediately note that Joshua is cut to a fare-the-well and weighed in at just six pounds more than his smaller opponent. I think that, like you, we’re looking for a KO/TKO down in the rounds.
Seriously, don’t you think there’s at least a possibility of a point at which the quiet, unassuming, but swift Parker could become dangerous for Joshua, if not actually managing to be lethal.
Cornerman ?: It’s boxing for Chrissakes, so yes, unequivocally, anything can always happen. And I do think that Parker is fast. But I don’t think he has the totality of gifts that Joshua has as a fighter, who has been honing and honing away at his talents with apparent focus. Not that Parker doesn’t speak the truth, and I do like the fact that he isn’t boastful, but you have the sense that Joshua means what he says when he talks about belt unification and Wilder, and on a daily basis, in his workouts, is taking himself and all that quite seriously. Despite Fast Eddie Hearn’s loudmouthing.
