Mike Hosking: Joseph Parker bout as big as it gets

The Joseph Parker fight is as big as it gets, says Mike Hosking. Photo / Photosport

Opinion

I could not be happier for Joseph Parker.

Seventy thousand tickets in an hour: a new record for the stadium. This fight is the biggest sporting event of the year, and probably by some margin.

Say what you want about boxing, and there is a lot to say, but you can't argue with numbers. Rightly or wrongly, there is something magical about the heavy version of the game at the highest level. Especially when it's represented by quality athletes.

And for the first time in many years, both Parker and Anthony Joshua are the genuine article. It's a truly global sport, perhaps as global as any sport on the planet. It's the biggest money sport in the world for singular events, all of which means the fact that we have one of the biggest players in the game in the middle of it all, is not to be under estimated. In fact we should be celebrating.

David Tua started it of course. There, and I remember it succinctly, was nothing that had come close to that world title fight. The nation literally stopped.

These days the nation never stops, it gets pretty obsessed with the America's Cup. All Blacks vs England will be good for the water cooler.

But watch what happens on the day of this fight. More eyeballs will be on this than anything we've seen for a long time. It's not just a title fight, we've seen those.

This is a unification fight. The very real prospect is Parker is not just a champion, but the greatest boxer in the world, with a purse to see him right for life. And if he wins, the ongoing prospect of more money than he can swim in.

Say what you want about Duco and David Higgins, and previously the slightly outlandish Dean Lonergan, but they've got the deal, they've put it together, they've got themselves in the ring, in the biggest of big times.

Say what you want about Kevin Barry and the time with Tua, but he's on the verge of everything he must ever have imagined. And the star of the show, Joe Parker, deserves it all.

Having dealt with him for the past few years of this journey, he's always affable, he's likeable, he's available, he works hard, he's professional, he's dedicated. He is a role model for every kid who aspires to anything great. So can he do it?

And that is why this thing is also so big. Yes he's won, but he's never won well. He's promised heaps, but on the night it's never really fired, and that's not me talking, that's Parker and Barry.

They train well, prepare well, feel good, but on fight night it's always one gear short of top gear. And if they turn up that way this time they'll get killed, because as 70,000 tickets in one hour proves, this is as big and as good as it gets.