World Heavyweight boxers Anthony Joshua of Britain, left, and New Zealand's Joseph Parker look at each other after a press conference in London. Photo / AP.
Anthony Joshua and his promoter Eddie Hearn held all the aces as negotiations began in early November last year to create a heavyweight unification fight with Joseph Parker. We now know it will take place at the Principality Stadium on March 31.
Joshua had beaten Carlos Takam in Cardiff in October, retaining his WBA, IBF and IBO belts. A month earlier, Parker had travelled to Manchester from New Zealand, via his training camp in Las Vegas, and held on to his WBO crown as he earned a majority points decision over Hughie Fury, the younger cousin of Tyson Fury. Parker's plan was to make a statement against Fury. But it was a drab affair. Neither champion, each undefeated still, had looked overly impressive in their respective defences. And yet Joshua's fight, despite being against an eleventh hour replacement, drew 80,000 spectators and pay per view numbers of around 600,000 on Sky Box Office.
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The problem for Parker's promotional team of David Higgins and PR head Craig Stanaway, at Auckland based Duco Events, was that Joshua had earned what Telegraph Sport has reported was close to £20 million for the fight against Takam. That meant Hearn would have to negotiate hard for a massive split of the purse if his next encounter was to be a unification bout, either against Parker, or potentially, the WBC champion Deontay Wilder.
While the Watford fighter and his promoter claimed they were aiming to unify the belts in 2018, behind the scenes it is thought they may have settled for an easier, non-unification fight instead. But what helped Duco Events, Telegraph Sport has learnt, was that Sky Box Office executives were keen for a unification battle, and Wilder was asking for too much. It opened the door to the New Zealanders.
Hearn had proclaimed after the Joshua-Takam fight that it would be "Parker, Wilder and Fury in 2018". It painted him into a corner because the British public would expect nothing less. A defence against Alexander Ustinov or Christian Hammer would have been embarrassing.
So Duco Events focused on the "glass jaw" angle to build Parker's profile and pile pressure on the Joshua camp, with a video on YouTube designed to go viral. The press conference to launch the video, showing Joshua being knocked down, was streamed on Facebook.
The feed was poor, but in a perverse way it helped land the fight. Had the feed been perfect, Duco Events probably would not have gained the infamy they did. The Sun panned the Facebook feed prompting British fans to flock to the internet to find the press conference and watch the train wreck. It helped massively that Hearn slammed the video on IFV TV calling it "amateur". It was, strangely, a momentum changer in negotiations. Hearn came under pressure to sign the fight.
"We had always targeted Joshua, and the fight with Fury in Manchester was part of the plan," explained Parker's promoter David Higgins. "We needed a campaign. AJ was already a star. Joseph is becoming a star. So we had a three-point plan to get stuck into Joshua, to call him out. We talked about his chin; we pushed the theme that Joseph is mentally tougher, never rattled and he has greater hand speed. Joseph has never been off his feet in his life. We knew Joshua had been down several times, and that he has a vulnerable chin. What we couldn't believe is that no other opponents had ever talked about it. So we went loud and we went public, and they didn't like it."
As they pushed back and forth on contracts, they were negotiating to come up with a venue fee to increase Parker's purse, now understood to be around £7 million, Joshua is expected to earn close to £18 million.
"The venue potentially had big economic value, worth tens of millions to the location so we talked to various places," said Higgins, who had come up with Dubai and Barcelona's Nou Camp. Cardiff came up. Twickenham, and cities in Germany were also touted.
Hearn, though, was playing hard ball. Although he told Telegraph Sport on Dec 16 that he expected "to sit down for Christmas lunch with the fight signed", that was not how Higgins saw it. In fact, after an opening email from Hearn, Higgins said the British promoter "had made the most ridiculously low offer. It could have been the most insulting offer in boxing history." Higgins told Telegraph Sport late this week: "We targeted getting a fair ratio for the fight, and we looked into Joshua's chin. The fair ratio bothered them, as did public discussion of Joshua's fragile chin. We believe Joshua was mentally rattled."
Duco Events said they were negotiating to sign Australian Lucas Browne to fight Parker. It was a bluff, a standby.
They still wanted Joshua. A victory over him would secure a massive second fight and a mammoth payday – there is a rematch clause so if Parker does win, he is contractually obliged to face Joshua again – and, of course, it would give New Zealand's first ever heavyweight world champion three of the principal heavyweight belts.
"We knew Joshua had the ambition of unifying the belts, so politics would probably not get in the way," Higgins explained. As Parker told Telegraph Sport in an exclusive interview last week, with three undefeated belt holders, and a fourth undefeated fighter in the returning Tyson Fury, "it would be travesty if the four did not all fight each other". He said: "We have the opportunity to really see who the No 1 in the world is. It's a wonderful era for heavyweight boxing. There are many contenders and champions evenly matched. I think we're going to see a period of close, exciting fights, rematches and, hopefully, unification and one champion rising to the top.
"All the greats put it on the line. Many took losses. Evander Holyfield, Mike Tyson. That's because they were fighting the best and wanted to fight the best. Hopefully we're going to see that come to the fore again. Joshua, Wilder, Parker, Tyson, they genuinely do want to fight each other. The promoters have a part to play. My view is everyone should just be fair."