Joseph Parker books next fight against British cruiserweight champ

Joseph Parker will return to the ring in January as he plots his comeback from his first knockout loss of his career.

Parker will square off against British cruiserweight Jack “One Smack” Massey in Manchester on January 22 on the undercard for the middleweight matchup between Chris Eubank Jr and Liam Smith.

Massey (20-1), who holds the IBO world cruiserweight title, will step up to heavyweight for the first time.

“I don’t shy away from a challenge. Stepping up to fight a top 10 ranked heavyweight,” the Manchester native said on Twitter following the fight announcement.

Parker, 30, will return to Manchester Arena where he suffered the third defeat of his career in September, a 11th round knockout loss to Joe Joyce for the interim WBO heavyweight title that dropped his record to 30-3.

The Kiwi former WBO heavyweight champ, who is still ranked in the top 10 by the WBC and WBO, will be the favourite as the bigger man and can’t afford another loss as he hopes to get his world title ambitions back on track.

Parker weighed in at a career-high 115.84kg for his fight against Joyce, while Massey is used to fighting at a 90.7kg limit.

British promoter Ben Shalom said Parker is looking to bounce back after his “fight of the year contender” against Joyce.

“Local lad Jack Massey has been begging me for this fight against Joseph Parker. He has got huge support in Manchester and now he’ll be fighting one of the biggest names in boxing,” the Boxxer CEO and founder said as he announced the fight.

“Parker is coming back after his fight of the year contender with Joe Joyce and will want to show exactly what he is all about. It will be very interesting to see how Parker reacts against a hometown favourite.”

This article was first published on nzherald.co.nz and is republished here with permission