Boxing: Auckland gets ready to rumble for Joseph Parker

Name: Watch: Parker gets ready
Uploaded: 2016-12-10T14:40:19+13:00
Duration: 78 s
Description: Joseph Parker walks through the ring and top-name well-wishers have their say

By Matthew Theunissen

NZ Herald·

10 Dec, 2016 05:58 AM4 mins to read

Joseph Parker walks through the ring and top-name well-wishers have their say

The crowd has started pouring into Auckland's Vector Arena - and they're in a mood for a fight.

No prizes for guessing who they want to see become WBO world heavyweight champion when Joseph Parker slugs it out with power-punching Mexican Andy Ruiz Jr this evening.

It's the biggest boxing bout to be held on New Zealand soil and could see this country's first NZ-born world heavyweight championship belt holder.

About 10,000 people are expected to fill the arena, after a furious promotional campaign by organisers Duco Events.

The crowd includes outgoing Prime Minister John Key, and his replacement Bill English.
Dame Susan Devoy is also in attendance.

Others at the big fight include World Cup winning All Blacks coach Sir Graham Henry, Hollywood actor Cliff Curtis and several All Blacks and Warriors players.

Fight promoter Dean Lonergan, from Duco Events, was enjoying mingling with some of the black tie crowd after what has been an exhausting promotional campaign.

"It's fair to say I'm pretty damn excited," he said. "This is a historic event for New Zealand it's a historic event for boxing, and also a historic event for our company - it's not every day you get to promote a heavyweight title and to do it on our home turf is really gratifying.

"The stadium's nearly sold out, we might have 100, 120 tickets left, and we're going really well on TV so we couldn't be happier. If Joseph was to win tonight my goodness me we'd be in raptures tomorrow."

The event is a novelty for New Zealand and many of those who bought tickets just wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

"It's just huge to have boxing in New Zealand, on such an international scale," said Aucklander Tana Valeni.

"I've only been following first Tua and now Parker but it's just exciting, it's huge. Expensive tickers but I just wanted to be part of it."

He predicted Parker would win in the sixth.

The buildup, while full of the usual garish fanfare that accompanies professional boxing bouts, was characterised by respect between the two fighters, and the punters are hoping they've saved their aggression up for the ring.

Parker weighs in at 111.9kg of what he called "muscle, pure muscle" while his opponent tips the scales at 116kg, slightly above his goal weight of 114kg.

In the lead-up to the bout, punters seemed split on who was going to win, according to the TAB.

Parker remains the firm favourite to win the fight, paying $1.30 to Ruiz's $3.30.

But the the TAB's Mark Stafford said the money was fairly evenly split between the two fighters.

"The general patterns are they take the underdog in the week leading up, which they've done with Ruiz, and then on the day of the fight they'll take Parker, which they are doing,"he said.

"We're still seeing a little bit of money on Ruiz but most of it is on Parker now."

Most of the Parker bets were for a knockout victory whereas those putting money on Ruiz Jr were expecting the fight to go the full 12 rounds.

Stafford said the biggest bet was $5000 for Parker to win.