Parker's Trainer on Fury: Joe is Very Comfortable vs. Taller Fighters
By Ryan Burton
On April 1st, WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker (22-0) and unbeaten mandatory challenger Hughie Fury (20-0) will collide at a venue to be determined in Parker's homeland of New Zealand.
Duco Events, one of Parker's co-promoters along with Top Rank, secured the rights to promote the fight with a purse bid entry just north of $3 million dollars. Frank Warren, on behalf of Fury, came in just below the winning bid with their own submission in the 2.8 million dollar range.
Parker's trainer Kevin Barry is very pleased that the fight will be a home game for his student.
"We are very excited to have won the bid. Our promotional team, Duco Events, David Higgins in particular, worked very hard on this," said Barry. "We offered Hughie Fury and his team, Frank Warren, a very good deal in negotiations and we were actually surprised that it went to to purse bid. They came in and put in a very serious offer and I think they were very confident that they would win the purse bid but Duco has supported Joseph Parker extremely well over the past four years and there was no way they were going to let the fight leave New Zealand."
Life changed for Parker in December when he became the first New Zealander to win a world title in the heavyweight division. He fended off a stiff challenge from the then unbeaten Andy Ruiz to win a majority decision and pick up the WBO belt in the process.
Barry said that the whole country has supported their native son.
"Joe has become a superstar in New Zealand. He is a very humble superstar. In New Zealand, last year this was the feel good story of the year. Everyone is behind Joseph Parker. They are all supporting him. They want to see him do well. For us to bring this fight back to New Zealand and defend the title there is something we are all feeling real good about," he explained.
As for the fight against against the 6'6" Fury, Parker should be very prepared for the challenge his height presents. Prior to facing Ruiz, the 6'4" Parker was the mandatory challenger for IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua who also stands 6'6". In rotating for Joshua, he fought taller opponents like Alexander Dimitrenko and had several tall sparring partners in his training camps to help get him ready for the giants of the division.
"We spent several training camps last year with very tall guys in camp. A lot taller than Joe and Izu (Ugonoh). Guys from 6'9" down to 6'7" so Joe is very comfortable with taller opponents. We have a very good training camp in place for the Hughie Fury fight. I like that style for Joe and I really liked the way Joe especially in the Diminktrenko fight last year could close the distance with ease. I think he is very comfortable fighting taller guys as opposed to shorter guys like Takam and Andy Ruiz," Barry told BoxingScene.com.
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