DEREK CHISORA does not see Joseph Parker as a route to another world title shot. For him it’s a fight, nothing more, nothing less and the unpredictable British heavyweight will continue to chart his own course through the sport.
“Let’s all be honest, you should ask Dillian [Whyte] if he wants a world title shot because he’s been waiting five years. I don’t want a world title shot to be honest, I just want to fight. To put myself in those positions it means I have to be begging, saying, ‘Please, let me have this.’ And no, I don’t want to beg,” Chisora said. “If you have a mandatory you have to fight another mandatory to prove yourself as a top mandatory, then if you beat that guy you fight another mandatory. So it’s round and round and round we go.
“Instead I am making boxing work for me. I won’t say ,’Oh please give me a shot at the world title…’ No, I’ll do it my way.”
Chisora has no intention of stepping out of the heavyweight scene any time soon though. “You will miss us when we are gone,” he says. “To be honest, I don’t see too many big characters coming after me, apart from maybe Tyson Fury and Dillian Whyte, who give you the headlines you like.”
His last fight was against Oleksandr Usyk, the mandatory for the WBO title, and though Chisora succumbed on points, he acquitted himself well. “They keep telling me I would have got a draw against Usyk if I had won one more round and that Usyk’s corner and team felt I won the fight,” the Londoner said. “It seems that in America they score rounds and fights for the guy who is pushing the pace but sometimes it feels that in the UK they prefer running away, so it’s difficult.
“You have to pressure Usyk but that is what I am very good at, it will be good to see how Joe Joyce does with that fight.”
He expects that approach to reap dividends against Joseph Parker on Saturday. “I will get to Joe, it’s not even a worry, I know I can close the gap and get inside with any fighter. I am never worried but they should always be worried about me getting past their jab and catching them, which I will be doing from the get-go,” he said. “Right now I am not looking forward to any other fights, I just want to destroy Joseph Parker because everyone seems to think he will beat me.
“For me, I know I will bring war to him.”
