Boxing: Joseph Parker finally books heavyweight blockbuster against Joe Joyce in Manchester after 'longest contract negotiation'

Joseph Parker will return to the ring to take on Joe Joyce in late September. Photo: Matchroom Boxing/Photosport

After months of negotiations, Joseph Parker and Joe Joyce are finally going to get the chance to put their hands on one another.

The two highly ranked heavyweight boxers will square off at Manchester Arena on September 25, with the winner earning their place as mandatory challenger to the world heavyweight championship.

After Parker's emphatic unanimous decision win over Derek Chisora last December, his camp had been looking at their options to see what the next step towards another shot at a world title might look like. That came in the form of Olympic silver medalist Joyce, and reports started to surface that a bout was in the works between the two in the early months of this year.

Now in August, the fight has finally been agreed upon and contracts were signed late on Thursday night in what Parker's manager David Higgins called "the longest contract negotiation of my life".

Negotiations were drawn out as Parker (30-2) became a free agent following his last bout against Chisora. In trying to book the fight with Joyce (14-0), the 30-year-old Kiwi was also in discussion with Frank Warren's Queensberry Promotions – Joyce's promoter - about a multi-fight promotional deal. However, terms were not reached, and Parker eventually signed a multi-fight deal with British boxing promoter Ben Shalom and Boxxer, who are aligned with Sky Sport UK.

That deal was announced in June. Despite not coming to terms with Warren's promotional company, the Joyce bout remained on the table and will now go down in just seven weeks' time.

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"It came down to the wire. Everyone was still trying to get concessions and make changes at the last minute, so it was actually on a knife edge," Higgins told the Herald of the bout finally being confirmed.

"Yesterday it could have easily fallen apart and not happened at all, so in a way it's a relief it's on because Joseph has been patiently waiting since he beat Chisora the second time for his next outing. But it's such a high-stakes game that the contracts have to be all in order and have to be right at this level, otherwise you can sell ourself down the river.

"The money has to be right; the number of fights has to be right. A lot of these contracts, especially the old-time promoters, are designed to sort of kidnap the fighter for life – for want of a better word – with clauses and options for future rights on eventualities, and a novice boxer, without knowing it, might sign something they then can't get out of.

"For us it was important to have a clean fight night contract that we can then look at renewal or otherwise. In the end we're happy to be aligned with Boxxer, Ben Shalom and British Sky, and this particular fight is going to be with Queensbury on [UK broadcaster] BT because the deal was done between them. We got there, and the fight itself is very interesting; it's a genuine 50/50 match up."

Parker is currently in the UK where he will remain for the rest of his camp, again training out of Tyson Fury's facilities in Morecambe with head coach Andy Lee, who has brought improvements out of the former WBO heavyweight champion since they started working together in early 2021.

A win over Joyce and Parker will take over the 36-year-old Brit's position as mandatory challenger for the WBO heavyweight title, which would be against the winner of the rematch between reigning unified champion Oleksandr Usyk and former champ Anthony Joshua. That rematch is scheduled for later this month in Jeddah.