Heavyweight contender Joseph Parker will face Alexander Dimitrenko on October 1st in New Zealand, according to Rafael of espn.com.
“It doesn’t faze me fighting big men,” Parker said. “I know if I put in the training, I know I can beat anyone in the world. … I think it’s important to go to the body and break him down.”
“We need to put Joe up against some big men,” Barry said. “There are big guys at the top of the heavyweight division. When you look at [world champion] Tyson Fury, when you look at [former champion Wladimir] Klitschko, when you look at Joshua, these guys are all tall. These are the guys we are targeting. These are the guys who hold the titles. These are the guys that dictate all of the big purses in world heavyweight boxing. So we need to go after them.”
“Dimitrenko is a guy who former world champion Shannon Briggs went out of his way to avoid earlier this year because of the risk,” Duco Events promoter Dean Lonergan said. “Even casual boxing fans know that all Eastern Europeans in the heavyweight division know how to fight.”
“We’ll focus on this fight, and after this fight there’s every indication that, everything going well, that we will fight another tall guy later in the year,” Barry said.
“Even though there’s something in the back of my head in Joshua, you still have to stay focused on what’s in front of you,” Parker said. “If you lose focus, that’s the fight you don’t get to. I want to stay focused even though we’re thinking about Joshua. This is another challenge.”
