Trainer Andy Lee says his fighter Joseph Parker will be ready to face Daniel Dubois next February if he does not reconsider Anthony Joshua, who has not yet decided whether to take the fight.
If the Dubois vs. Parker fight happens, it is expected to take place on February 22nd in the massive Riyadh Season event that promoter Eddie Hearn has talked about as being a massive one.
Many fans believe that Parker will have too much for Dubois and send him to his third career loss. However, other fans see the 27-year-old Dubois as too powerful for Parker, who has shown that he has a chin problem. So he reinvented his fighting style to become a pure boxer with the help of Andy Lee.
Dubois would be making his second defense of his IBF heavyweight title. He recently knocked out Joshua in five rounds on September 21 at Wembley Stadium in London.
The 32-year-old former WBO heavyweight champion Parker (35-3, 23 KOs) earned his shot at a world title by defeating Zhilei Zhang and Deontay Wilder in back-to-back fights. These weren’t particularly entertaining performances by Parker, who changed his style to become a defensive fighter, but he got the job done.
In Zhang’s case, Parker barely beat him after being dropped twice in a fight that appeared to go six rounds on March 8 in Riyadh. Parker should have lost by two knockouts, but the judges surprisingly gave him a 12-round majority decision. It wasn’t the ideal way for Parker to get a title shot, but he won’t turn it down.
Dubois has looked outstanding in his last three fights, knocking out Joshua, Filip Hrgovic and Jarrell Miller. Before that, he scared heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk, dropping him with a fifth-round body shot last August.
However, the referee considered it a low blow. The replay showed it was on the belt line, which meant Dubois should have received a fifth round knockout. Instead, he was later stopped in the ninth round.
Parker is ready. https://t.co/Syjz4xRdHV
— Andy Lee (@AndyLeeBoxing) 29 October 2024
