Patrick McKendry: Happy Joseph Parker remains healthy in savage world

Joseph Parker was smiling but looking weary in Cardiff the day after his big heavyweight fight. Photo / Dean Purcell

A week ago, late at night, I saw a middle-aged man tumble head-first down an escalator at London's Waterloo Station.

It was the noise that attracted my attention, a tumble of chaos and panic, the man's blood-red scarf akimbo and the frightened voices calling on someone, anyone, to push the red stop button before any more damage occurred. It was unsettling.

As I ascended the opposite stairs, he stood, unsteady and confused, a group gathering to ensure his safety.

I mention it because it happened several hours after I saw English heavyweight Dillian Whyte batter Australian Lucas Browne into unconsciousness in a boxing ring at London's O2 Arena.

My reaction was the same then as it was at the station; a feeling of dread and guilt at having witnessed such violence and a sympathy for him and his loved ones.

A week later, on the undercard of the Anthony Joshua v Joseph Parker world heavyweight unification title fight at Cardiff's Principality Stadium, Russian Alexander Povetkin put to sleep Englishman David Price with a two-punch combination which was probably even worse than the Browne stoppage.

It was sickening for several reasons; the first because Price had already been knocked senseless by Povetkin's right cross - so much so that he dropped his hands and was helpless to defend the left hook to the temple which followed, a potentially killer blow which would have seen the perpetrator locked up had it occurred on the street.

Like for the Browne knockout, the emergency services rushed to the ring with oxygen in order to revive him. Thankfully, Price, a likeable giant Liverpudlian, left the ring without any assistance.

Browne, seven days earlier, left on a stretcher and was taken to hospital. He, too, is thankfully okay.

All boxers live on a knife-edge when they enter the ring and the heavyweight division is brutal like no other.

And, in a roundabout way, that's why I was happy that Joseph Parker went the 12 rounds against Anthony Joshua even though when the final bell went I knew he had no chance of winning. Joshua, the knockout merchant, was forced to box his way to victory for the first time in his professional career and he was too good on the night.

But Parker left the ring unhurt, apart from a nick over his left eye caused by a Joshua elbow.

In going the distance against Joshua and winning, from my perspective, three or four rounds against the Olympic super heavyweight gold medallist, Parker deserves to be on this stage.

Despite the doubters, and a couple of dissenting voices who have surprised me with their take on this fight and promotion in general, Parker deserves to be counted among the world's elite heavyweights.

Should he prepare as well again, he will probably beat most other fighters in the division.

A couple of other observations after covering the build-up to this spectacular event and the action from ringside in Cardiff: one, this fight would never have happened had Parker's promoter David Higgins not drawn attention to Joshua's "glass jaw" - even Joshua and his man Eddie Hearn admit that. To argue otherwise is to perpetuate a Kiwi inferiority complex.

And two, Parker might not have delivered the victory that nearly everyone in New Zealand and Samoa were hoping for, but he left a wealthy man (he earned $10 million-plus for this fight), he wasn't fazed by the occasion, he took Joshua out of his comfort zone in and out of the ring, and he left it healthy and happy.

And of them all, the latter is the most important.