Coach Andy Lee says his boxer Joseph Parker will be ready to face Daniel Dubois in February if he doesn’t beat Anthony Joshua, who still hasn’t decided to take this fight.
If the battle of Dubois vs. Parker is taking place, it is expected to be arranged on February 22 in the biggest event of the Riyadh Season which the promoter Eddie Hearn talked about being big.
Many fans believe that Parker will be too much of a burden for Dubois and will cause him to suffer the third loss of his career. However, some fans see the 27-year-old Dubois as too strong for Parker, who has shown that he has a chin problem. That’s why he reinvented his fighting style to become a pure boxer with the help of Andy Lee.
Dubois will 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) has won a world title by defeating Zhilei Zhang and Deontay Wilder in back-to-back fights. They weren’t too happy about Parker, who has changed his style to a defensive player, but he got the job done.
In Zhang’s case, Parker didn’t beat him after a two-fight losing streak that saw him lose six rounds on March 8 in Riyadh. Parker was supposed to lose by two knockouts, but surprisingly the judges gave him a 12-round majority decision. It wasn’t the best way for Parker to get the title, but he won’t turn it down.
Dubois has looked dominant in his last three fights, knocking out Joshua, Filip Hrgovic, and Jarrell Miller. Before that, he gave heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk a scare, knocking him out in the fifth round with a body shot last year in August.
However, the referee called a small foul. The rematch showed that it was on the belt, meaning Dubois should have been knocked out in the fifth round. Instead, he was later stopped in the ninth round.
Parker is ready.
— Andy Lee (@AndyLeeBoxing) October 29, 2024
