Boxing: Speedster next foe for busy Parker

Parker will fight American Jason Pettaway over 10 rounds on March 5. Photo / Dean Purcell

Joseph Parker will face another style test in his next bout rather than meeting a top-ranked opponent.

The Kiwi heavyweight boxer will fight American Jason Pettaway over 10 rounds at the Vodafone Events Centre in Manukau on Thursday, March 5, as he begins a busy 2015 campaign where he is likely to step in the ring five times.

Parker, ranked inside the top 12 of the WBO and WBA with a 12-0 professional record, will be forced to move quickly against the counter-punching Pettaway (17-1) who is light on his feet and has a polished technique. Pettaway is ranked 158th in the world by respected website Boxrec and has no status inside the top 15 of any of the four major sanctioning bodies.

But Parker's trainer Kevin Barry said Pettaway posed a different threat to many of Parker's previous opponents who liked to come forward.

"He's a big mover, he's not going to be the sort of guy that's going to stand in front of Joe and let Joe tee off on him," Barry said of Pettaway.

"We are going to have to corner this guy, we are going to have to set a fight plan in place of cutting the ring off and keeping the pressure on."

Pettaway, 34, has a strong amateur background and should push Parker in certain areas before the South Aucklander moves on to more challenging opponents. Pettaway's only professional loss came via TKO against retired Russian Magomed Abdusalamov in March, 2012.

Parker's handlers want to keep him busy this year after he produced five wins in as many bouts in 2014.

"What we've proven is activity has been helping us in the development of Joe," Barry said. "He's showing great progress. He's a very intelligent, very talented fighter with great boxing character and what he needs now is experience."

Parker, who will spar with heavyweight world champion Wladimir Klitschko during his training camp in Austria in April, will likely fight again in May, although no opponent has been confirmed.

For Parker's third bout of the year, which has been tentatively planned for Invercargill in July, Barry said they wanted to step up against a big-name boxer as they continued their pursuit of being ranked inside the world's top five by the end of the year.

Despite the hype around Parker, Pettaway remained confident of coming to New Zealand and producing a strong showing.

"I have studied his style and identified his flaws which we will exploit," Pettaway said.