Sport: Parker right to be looking at world title

Jared Smith Photo/File

At last estimate, Sir Bob Jones is worth about $619 million more than me, so this is heavyweight opinion v lightweight.

The property magnate, whose New Zealand party split the National vote to help bring Labour into power in 1984 and whose truculence with Air NZ staff saw him buy his own private plane rather than apologise, just happens to be an unwavering boxing tragic.

Or at least, one who follows boxing as it used to be.

The one-time manager of a young teenaged South Auckland prospect named Lupesoliai La'auli Joseph Dennis Parker, Sir Robert picked up the tab to allow Parker to travel the globe as an amateur - getting an unprecedented amount of experience beyond what any typical Kiwi fighter could hope to obtain at that age.

But once Parker was signed by his handlers Duco Events to fight rugged South African Francois Botha - an over the hill fighter but one with a lot of limelight after his dirty and controversial brawl with Sonny Bill Williams - Sir Robert walked away from his young protege on principle.

The bout was a pure money-spinner and a poor quality opponent to be grooming Parker against, he opined at the time.

"I'm not going to be party to this crap. I just can't take any more.

"I've been on record on television and radio saying Botha shouldn't be fighting and it's a disgrace and so on.

"Then I pop up with my bloke fighting him - I mean, good Lord. This causes me massive embarrassment."

It is a theme which has continued to this day with every bout that Parker is placed in by Duco Events.

Sir Robert, a former boxer in his student days, contributing magazine writer and author on pugilism, continues to rail against the "disgraceful circus of modern world championship boxing".

Parker, now in line for a crack at Britain's's IBF world champion Anthony Joshua, is "nowhere near ready" for the top echelons and in any case, Joshua is "not the world heavyweight champion", says Sir Robert.

"[Parker] is not a huge puncher and constantly fails to use his best weapon, namely his jab. His No1 IBF ranking is farcical.

"He would at best rate 15th in the world. At 24 he has time on his side and should be taking learning fights against better quality opponents and not the Solomon Haumona's of this world.

"At the moment, he could not foot it with the real top level heavyweights and should steer clear of them for a couple of years, when he doubtless will be able to. Sadly, it appears this won't happen."

Sir Robert, who it was alleged in 2006 did not use modern technology like cellphones, and is known to still write all his books by hand, is quite right to lament the current "alphabet soup" of boxing groups which sanction multiple world titles, done purely to allow competing promoters and television companies to create bigger profits from more 'must see' events.

However, it is a bit rich, no pun intended, asking Parker to martyr himself against the modern trends and hold back on negotiating the big money bouts, hard earned at this point, which could see him earn a tidy penny internationally and in doing so, become our first New Zealand-born world champion in 126 years.

Even if that belt is just one of a half dozen in the heavyweight division to hold the claim of world title status.

While you can argue Parker could not handle the top guys, it's not like the division is currently stacked with the Muhammad Alis and Joe Fraziers of the 1970s golden age for boxing - where I'm sure Sir Robert would be happy to reside if he could finance the successful construction of a time machine.

The current lineal champion Tyson Fury, the "King of the Gypsies", was virtually unknown outside of England before his championship victory last year, when he won his belts over an aged Wladimir Klitschko in a bout more exciting for the changing of the guard than it was a fight spectacle.

In fact, it was a completely dull 12-round affair, where the victor Fury landed a mere 86 of 371 punches thrown.

He did hardly anything, which was still more than Klitschko doing nothing.

That's the current landscape, the reality of the scene, so what point in holding Parker back with the expectation he won't reach his prime for another five to six years, as Sir Robert has insisted is the tried-and-true method of fighter development?

Yes, Parker should blitz Haumona in a bout probably not worth $40-50 to watch on PPV, although that apparently is not stopping a number of Kiwis accessing illegal streaming websites, but at least it's a warm-up for the prize at the end of the tunnel in Joshua, and perhaps Fury if all goes well.

Everybody else in the world is inflating the marquee values for their own guy, be he English, American or Russian, so what choice does Duco have if not to play the same game?

On another tack, if anyone thinks I'm cutting svengali Duco promoters Dean Lonergan and partner David Higgins a break, the news out last Friday before Parker's victory over Carlos Takam regarding the treatment of expat Whanganui boxer Robert "the Butcher" Berridge is quite shameful.

Needing a quality fighter on a lacklustre undercard, Duco were allegedly only willing to get back into business with Berridge, who they let go in 2014 for an alcohol-related incident, if the 31-year-old would personally pay all the expenses for opponent Joseph Kwadjo and his entourage to travel from Fiji.

It literally meant Berridge was taking the fight for no financial gain.

Berridge, after a rocky 2015, is now back with original trainer Cleve Langdon, and while he may have blotted his copybook 18 months ago, he has worked hard to turn his life around, including becoming a father for the second time, and deserved far better than such an exploitative, "take-it-or-leave-it", pittance offer.

Here's hoping with major bouts lined up later this year, specifically against rival Adrian Taihia, that a string of victories will re-inflate his marquee value and leave any local promotion, even Duco, with little option to pay Berridge what he deserves for his services.