As former king Tyson Fury begins training for a comeback, Parker is aiming to gazump the returning Briton by offering the winner the chance to add the WBO strap to their haul.
Duco Event’s Director David Higgins says undefeated Parker, 24, may wish to make his presence felt at London’s Wembley Stadium in the spring in order to seal a prospective unification later in 2017.
“I will certainly look at being there, but for Joe, he could be there to call out the winner for a mega-fight at Wembley in the late summer to unify the belts,” Higgins exclusively told World Boxing News.
“That’s what we want – to unify the belts and we are willing to lose trying. If the other belt holders shared our views it would fix the heavyweight division. Any heavyweight worth their salt should be looking to unify the division and hold all the belts. When the belts aren’t unified, the public are confused about who is the champion.
“In the past, the Klitschko’s couldn’t unify because they were brothers and that’s why the public lose interest and it hurts the sport. That’s why the Klitschko’s will never have that legacy like and undisputed champion will have. Take Lennox Lewis for example or Muhammad Ali, the Klitschko’s never really got to that top level, in my opinion, because they didn’t become undisputed.
“It sort of hurt the sport at bit for 15 or so years, but it’s different now because the belt holders are hungry and willing to take the risk.
“Losing isn’t the end of the world either. The majority of greats lost at some point in their careers and many of them came back. Lennox Lewis beat the two guys who knocked him out and had the courage to put it all on the line.
“It’s exciting and I think Joseph Parker has timed it just right coming into a host of cracker match-ups, rematches and maybe even trilogies where it goes one way and then the other before back again.
“There are a lot of guys around and the UK is shaping up to be the epicenter for that,” he added.
