Joshua defeated Carlos Takam on Saturday night, and despite being a massive favourite, struggled to take out the Cameroonian in ten rounds.
After watching his efforts, and Joshua show signs of fatigue in patches of the contest, former boxer Barry is optimistic about Parker’s chances against the unified king.
“It made me feel that we have a very, very good chance of dethroning this guy,” Barry told stuff.co.nz
“Everything I saw yesterday – while watching the fight, I am in my mind seeing many ways for Joe to nullify his attack and to open up holes on his defence.
“I thought Joshua was robotic, I thought he was slow at times, I thought his lead patterns were very predictable.
“And, once again, he showed that he definitely has stamina problems, he was blowing big time.”
On adapting Parker’s style to take the Briton’s titles, Barry added: “There are a lot of things in Anthony Joshua’s game that I think work very, very well for us,” he pointed out.
“Look, there is no pretending the guy has huge strength and power, he is a big, strong, muscular athlete. But there are things that I know that Joe Parker can do with the right sort of style in front of him that I think measure up exceptionally well with what Anthony Joshua has to give.”
Regarding Takam making it difficult for Joshua despite coming in a short notice, Barry thought the challenger went above and beyond his means.
“We know all about his big motor and pride .. but on 12 days notice I didn’t expect him to stick around as long as he did,” Barry stated.
“Takam always stays in shape but he hadn’t done the sparring. I would have loved to have seen how the fight would have panned out if Takam had the same lead-in time to when he fought Joe, when he knew about the fight three and a half months in advance.
“And let’s remember we fought him a year and a half ago. Takam is 37 in December, he is coming towards the end. The other way of looking at this is Joshua is another year and a half better.”
Parker still has time to improve himself before he finally shares the ring with Joshua as a March clash with the winner of the Tony Bellew v David Haye rematch is in the pipeline for next year.
Joshua is heading down the WBA route meaning a summer encounter would be likeliest, potentially at Wembley Stadium, provided both come through their interim bouts.
