"Make your own mind up," was Higgins' reply today when asked about Joshua's snub. "Some people are humble and some people pretend to be humble. I'll let the public make their own minds up but for those Kiwi journalists to drive all the way to Sheffield and for him to walk out and leave them standing, that says something. It goes to character."
Barry went further, suggesting Joshua, a 28-year-old with one of the highest profiles in the sport, should get off his "high horse".
During Joshua's media session at England's Institute of Sport, he described Parker as "weird" and the Kiwi's promotional team at Duco Events "backstabbing" in a surprising show of apparent over-sensitivity.
"It is a little disappointing," Barry said. "There are two fighters in this fight. This is a world heavyweight unification fight, the first one for eight years.
"This is not just about Anthony Joshua. There is an undefeated world heavyweight champion called Joseph Parker and his people are here from New Zealand and they are here from Samoa. Show them a little respect.
"Hopefully he [Joshua] gets off his high horse and when we sit down and do the press conference next week he will speak to the New Zealand media who are here and give them the respect they deserve, as we have done to the UK media.
"We've had a very busy household of media from the UK. We've had them for breakfast, we've had them for lunch. Sometimes they've been in the gym with us the whole day. Some teams were with us for three days at a time.
"We've been very inviting, we've opened our home and our gym to them."
On a bit of a roll, Barry said few here in Great Britain, including the bookies, were showing the respect a now injury-free Parker deserves.
"I think bookmakers have bought into this marvel of Anthony Joshua, I think they've over-read the Klitschko performance. We're talking about a 41-year-old man who looked pretty sloppy in his fight before that."
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