When Joseph Parker was slated to face Daniel Dubois in the heavyweight co-main event to Artur Beterbiev’s rematch with Dmitry Bivol, there was a clear narrative: two men who have risen from their lowest points to enjoy the richest spells of their respective careers were squaring off for the opportunity to fight for the undisputed heavyweight championship of the world.
Now that Parker is instead taking on the Congolese slugger Martin Bakole, that narrative changes just a little. Parker’s remains the same, of course, but the introduction of Bakole – a man who, one shoulder-injury-influenced loss to Michael Hunter aside, has not experienced the career lows that both Parker and Dubois have endured – brings in other elements. The words “risk” and “opportunity” come to mind, as does the prospect of Bakole forcing his way in short order to the front of the line six brief months after he caused boxing fans to sit up and take notice by blasting out Jared Anderson inside five rounds.
So, instead of Parker facing an opponent whose professional career largely mirrored his own – promise and potential, defeat and disillusionment, rebirth and revival – he will now face someone whose boxing path doesn’t look especially similar at all.
When Parker, 35-3 (21 KOs), turned professional in July 2012, it was as a solid-but-unspectacular amateur who had won silver at the Commonwealth Games but had failed to qualify for the London Olympics.
Even though New Zealand’s Parker had not made it on to the stage from which Anthony Joshua emerged with the gold medal, those fighters soon began to be mentioned as potential rivals. Both recorded wins over the usual has-beens and never-weres on which up-and-coming pugilists routinely feed; in May 2016, Parker stepped it up a notch with a points win over a still-useful Carlos Takam, and two fights later eked past Andy Ruiz – admittedly, via a narrow majority decision that plenty felt could or should have gone the other way. After disposing of Razvan Cojanu and Hughie Fury, he faced Joshua in Cardiff, Wales, in March 2018.
Both men were undefeated – Joshua was 20-0 with every win coming via knockout, and Parker was 24-0 with 18 stoppages – but it was Joshua who left the ring with his zero still intact, after securing a unanimous decision. Despite tasting defeat for the first time as a professional, Parker could at least console himself somewhat with being the first to take the former Olympic champion 12 rounds.
In his very next fight, however, Parker was dropped in the second and ninth rounds and outpointed by Dillian Whyte – a man whose career has proven him to be one of the better heavyweights of his era, even if a tad below the elite level, but against whom men with aspirations to be world champion probably shouldn’t be losing.
Parker rebuilt himself with a quartet of wins that concluded with a decision over the unbeaten Junior Fa, who had eliminated him from Olympic qualifying. A return to England involved him suffering a heavy knockdown in the first round against Derek Chisora but recover to score a mildly controversial split decision win, before then comfortably outboxing the Brit in a rematch.
But yet another British opponent seemingly forced Parker’s career off the rails anew when an imperious Joe Joyce brutalized and stopped him in September 2022.
Joyce’s stoppage of Parker appeared to establish him definitively as the marquee division’s new Big Bad, coming as it did after he had done much the same to Dubois. It appeared to relegate Parker permanently to the level of “almost, but not quite” – good enough and willing enough to compete with just about anybody, but not quite at the level required to emerge on top against the very best.
But there would be a twist in the tale.
Just as he was riding at his highest, Joyce was sent crashing back to Earth, two heavy stoppage losses to Zhilei Zhang exposing the risks of following the Homer Simpson plan of taking your opponents’ best punches until they exhaust themselves. (There is always a Drederick Tatum waiting in the wings.) In July 2024, Joyce lost again, to Chisora, and at the age of 39 it feels like his window of opportunity has closed.
Since falling to Joyce, however, Parker has put together arguably the best run of his career. After three wins, he took on Deontay Wilder and became the first person not named Tyson Fury to defeat the Alabaman as a professional, thoroughly outworking and at times almost stopping him in December 2023. Three months later Parker exceeded even that performance, upending Zhang’s momentum with a majority decision victory. Under the tutelage of Andy Lee and as an integral part of Team Fury, Parker seems to be more at ease with himself in the ring than ever before, inhabiting the sweet spot in which a boxer is relaxed without being lackadaisical; focused without being tense.
Victory over Dubois would have allowed Parker to claim a world title and to challenge the true heavyweight champion, Oleksandr Usyk. Beating Bakole won’t grant him the purist-infuriating ability to call himself a champion; but he may regard the change of opponent as increasing the odds of earning the right to face Usyk.
Switching from the Brit to the Congolese feels like a risk, as if Parker is taking on an opponent who poses the same or similar risk to Dubois without carrying the upside. That may well be true, but it may also be an opportunity for Parker to shine against a man whose hype exceeds his achievements to date – and may not reflect his true ability, either.
The problem is that we don’t yet know how good Bakole is.
As my former long-time podcast partner Eric Raskin recently observed on Boxing Scene, Bakole may be very good. But he has risen overnight from a relatively unknown prospect to someone being widely touted as the division’s new boogeyman, solely on the strength of his annihilation of Anderson.
As Raskin noted, Bakole, 21-1 (16 KOs), had earned himself enough of a reputation going into the Anderson fight that there was no shortage of prognosticators who picked him to win, but that owed as much to Anderson’s callowness and failure to convince as to Bakole’s strengths and skill.
That said, the win was impressive, and Bakole undeniably brings plenty to the table. He is powerful and he is swift, deploying surprisingly agile footwork to close the distance to his foes and throw sharp combinations with real force.
But there have been plenty of heavyweights who have emerged into public consciousness with a signature win or two only to be found wanting up against the very best. Seth Mitchell is one example that Raskin noted, and one could throw on to that pile the likes of Michael Grant; more recently, contenders such as Luis Ortiz and indeed Joe Joyce have come and seemingly gone without making the impression or compiling the achievements that once seemed guaranteed.
Not long ago, similar sentiments were being expressed about Parker until he embarked on his late-stage career renaissance. And it will surely be said about him again should he lose to Bakole – and most likely with greater vigor than would have been the case had he slipped to defeat against Dubois.
In Bakole’s favor is that Parker’s weakness has often appeared to be an inability to absorb pressure – he struggled in the first fight against Chisora, was dropped twice by Whyte, and was ultimately overrun by Joyce. And Bakole is just the kind of opponent to bring that pressure.
But so too was Zhang, and Parker used his boxing ability to outmaneuver him and never allow him to impose himself the way he did against Joyce; it isn’t a stretch to see him doing similar to a raw Bakole, who has taken this match-up on just 48 hours’ notice.
Defeat for Parker is simultaneously conceivable and unthinkable – an outcome that can plausibly be imagined but which would seemingly undo all the hard work he has put in to re-establish himself, and leave him permanently short of the promised land.
Defeat for Bakole need not necessarily be such a career hindrance, particularly given that expectations will be tempered by his willingness to step in so late in the day. Victory, however, would cap a meteoric rise from semi-obscurity to one step from the heavyweight championship of the world.
So how will it go? Bakole has the size, strength, and speed to give Parker fits. If he is able to consistently close the distance and put Parker under pressure, forcing the New Zealander on to the back foot and out of his comfort zone, he could find himself alongside the likes of Manny Pacquiao in the pantheon of last-minute replacements who have pulled off big wins.
If, on the other hand, he isn’t able to do so, if Parker is able to keep Bakole’s offense at bay with a steady jab, and particularly if he is able to use his footwork and ring IQ to keep turning his opponent and preventing him from getting set, then Bakole could instead be the latest in a growing line of solid contenders who have been out-thought and outfought by the affable Kiwi.
Chances are that would be the outcome anyway, but it can only be more likely given the lateness of the match-up being made. Granted, Parker hasn’t prepared for Bakole, but he has had a training camp devoted to facing Dubois, an opponent with many of the best of Bakole’s attributes and then some. And he is as a result almost certainly better prepared – and, frankly, in better shape – than Bakole, with only a rumored May bout with Efe Ajagba to occupy him, could reasonably be expected to be.
That will change what might have been a close contest into an ultimately one-sided one. Parker may have to withstand some early pressure from Bakole, and there may even be points during the first few rounds when he looks on course for defeat. But he will withstand it; he’ll figure Bakole out and he’ll begin outboxing him to pull even and then ahead on the cards.
The cards, regardless, won’t be necessary as an exhausted Bakole steadily succumbs to Parker’s assault and is rescued by his corner in the 11th round of a valiant effort that does his reputation no harm at all.
Kieran Mulvaney has written, broadcast and podcast about boxing for HBO, Showtime, ESPN and Reuters, among other outlets. He presently co-hosts the “Fighter Health Podcast” with Dr. Margaret Goodman. He also writes regularly for National Geographic, has written several books on the Arctic and Antarctic, and is at his happiest hanging out with wild polar bears. His website is www.kieranmulvaney.com
