What is Joshua loses to Parker?

How would his fans react?? would they jump to the next "boogyman" would they stick by Joshua? could he regroup? His fans here or his fans in general? He only really has one hard-core fan on NSB, which is that Nah Mean fella. I would call myself a fan but not really more or less than most other British fighters. In my experience British fight fans can be critical of their athletes during failures, but tend not to jump ship, they stick with them and value character and personality as much as if not more than a serial winner. Example? Lewis Hamilton. 4x F1 world champion, breaking numerous records, basically an all time great, as well as being the first black F1 driver, he should be close to Tiger Woods level, but he can be a douche, and has had some unsavoury moments which I think has put lots of people off. In terms of the wider public, I think people will stick by Joshua, he says the right things and conducts himself well. Also an immediate rematch with Parker becomes a HUGE fight. I think he will be able to regroup, from what we have heard he's been put down and out in sparring, but it's not made him gun shy, and has not dented his self belief in the ring at all. This tells me that he has the character to compartmentalise these things and move on, not a lot of people can do that in life and it's a great quality.

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If he loses there will be a rematch, if he loses that too, his popularity will take a hit but how he rebuilds after that will define what happens next. Fact is Brits tend to be very loyal fans, even the casuals tend to stick by our fighters. Look at Bruno, lost again and again but was still filling stadiums, was still a very popular figure before his mental health issues saw him drop out of the public eye. Even now you have fans who never saw him during his prime chanting his name at boxing events, the man is a national treasure. Same with Froch, he was a bigger star after he lost to Kessler and Ward. The win vs Bute was enough to make him an even bigger draw than he was before. Brits love an underdog. Eubank Sr was hated during his prime he was the British Mayweather of his era, the villain. But after the loss to Calzaghe he probably became more popular as he showed heart in his loss. His fights with Thompson saw him by far the fan favourite. Hatton after the losses to Mayweather and Pac still sold out arena's still made millions. So even if Joshua loses, as long as he shows heart and desire and that bulldog never say die spirit in doing so then he'll still be a huge draw.

A rematch clause would doubtless kick in. There may be implications for one or more of the belts, whether they allow a rematch before a mandatory etc. Matchroom would promote the fight as vengeance, or redemption etc and perversely it may do much bigger numbers than the first one, because there would be a new Joshua, fallible, hurting etc to sell. AJs short term momentum would take a hit but as long as he could convincingly win a rematch his long term plans needn't be destroyed. In short, the boxing world would keep on turning as it always does and one mans adversity would be another's opportunity.

rematch, is already been said by hearn and Parker himself, there's a rematch clause, if AJ lost but then immediately avenged, they'd probs do the trilogy and make a lot of money, not sure how that'd affect the belts, IBF in particular

It would be like Lewis losing to rahman, except rahman was better than Parker so it’s almost impossible. Rahman might be better than Parker but Joshua worse than Lewis

It's HW fighters, no one should be surprised if that happens. At that weight range and just the natural force of those punches anything can happen if you make the slightest mistake.

parkers punching technique bugs me. I don't think he is winning, I think AJ will stop him

It wouldn't be the end of the world because I expect him to take a loss at some stage. All HW have power after all and I would still be a fan.

About 75% of AJ's fanbase in the UK are boxing casuals. The same kinda people who know nothing of MMA but would buy a Conor McGregor PPV after watching a few viral videos. His earning potential would take a big hit as a lot of these "fans" wouldn't hang around.

I'm sure his real fans would stick by him. A lot of 'fans' are really just haters of the other guy; I imagine those guys would move on to the next guy they think beats Wilder

Life would be over.

hearn would jump off a bridge.

Hes British, we dont tend to chuck fighters on the trash heap as soon as they lose, like the US way

There are no shocks in boxing, maybe for the casuals but not for people that know boxing, Parker has all the tools to beat AJ and I wouldn’t be shocked one bit if he did.

It would be like Lewis losing to rahman, except rahman was better than Parker so it’s almost impossible.