New Zealand heavyweight Joseph Parker has got his wish and will return to the ring quickly in a showdown with Chinese powerhouse Zhilei Zhang.<\/p>\n
Off the back of his dominant pre-Christmas win over American Deontay Wilder, Parker has agreed to another rich contest in Saudi Arabia, against Zhang in Riyadh on March 8.<\/p>\n
It will be the “co-feature” on a card also headlined by the fight between Briton Anthony Joshua and UFC specialist Francis Ngannou, whose only professional boxing fight was a loss to Tyson Fury in October.<\/p>\n
Parker, 32, and 40-year-old Zhang are coming off emphatic wins over notable opponents.<\/p>\n
The New Zealander revived his career with a unanimous points win over Wilder, showing a renewed dynamism in notching the 34th victory of his career and his fourth in a row since losing to Briton Joe Joyce in 2022.<\/p>\n
After the Wilder fight, Parker expressed a desire to fight Joshua.<\/p>\n
However, he said if that couldn’t happen, he just wanted to get back into the ring quickly.<\/p>\n
“I’d like to get out as soon as I can. March, I’d love to fight in March,” he said.<\/p>\n
“So listen, I’m training every day, I’m working hard, I’m eating clean. I’m just enjoying rest time but I know there’s a fight coming or looming very soon.”<\/p>\n
Southpaw Zhang exploded into prominence with two knockout wins over the previously-unbeaten Joyce last year, the second coming in the third round in October to improve his career record to 26 wins, 21 by knockout.<\/p>\n
A silver-medallist at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Zhang boasts an enormous 1.97m frame and won of the most powerful left-hands in the heavyweight ranks.\\<\/p>\n
His lone loss was to Croat Filip Hrgovic in a contentious points decision in 2022.<\/p>\n
Great Britain’s Anthony Joshua previously described a potential bout with Cameroon-born Ngannou, 37, as a “gimmick fight”.<\/p>\n
Ngannou sent the undefeated Fury to the canvas with a left hook before losing in a split decision.<\/p>\n
Joshua is keen to put himself in the mix to face the winner of a fight in Februay between WBC champion Fury multiple belt-holder Oleksandr Usyk of Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Boxing commentators have said the fight against Ngannou represents less risk for Joshua than might be anticipated against Parker – who many had considered an obvious next opponent after his victory over Wilder.<\/p>\n
Source: RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Zealand heavyweight Joseph Parker has got his wish and will return to the ring quickly in a showdown with Chinese powerhouse Zhilei Zhang. Off the back of his dominant pre-Christmas win over American Deontay Wilder, Parker has agreed to another rich contest in Saudi Arabia, against Zhang in Riyadh on March 8. It will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":8959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8958"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8960,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8958\/revisions\/8960"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}