Joseph Parker has been warned to lay off his completely unfounded suggestion that Anthony Joshua takes performance enhancing drugs.
The heavyweight unification fight between Joshua and Parker was confirmed on Sunday and will take place in Cardiff on March 31.
And while Parker has claimed that his trash talk in the build-up to the official fight announcement was purely to goad ‘AJ’ into signing on the dotted line, the WBO heavyweight champion is showing no signs of putting an end to his war of words with the Brit.
Parker has made quite the claim about his upcoming opponent in response to a jibe about the Kiwi’s physique on last week’s episode of The Graham Norton Show.
Graham Norton branded Parker “the king of pies” while Joshua was discussing March’s title fight.
“They call me the king of pies, but I call him the king of steroids,” Parker told the Radio Sports Breakfast.
“Who knows, if you are that big and that muscly, there’s something wrong.
”I have heard word, I have looked at him and I have seen. He has been very close with Klitschko… he has been a reigning champion for a long time.
“So I don’t know… it may be true maybe not.
”I don’t know how he will respond… he may be angry or upset at what we have been saying.
“It’s part of the game. I am not accusing him of using steroids, but I am saying it is a possibility.”
Even hinting at the possibility of an athlete using performance enhancing drugs is a legally unwise move for anyone to make and while ‘AJ’ is not known to be the most litigious man in the world, we don’t anticipate similar comments from Parker in the future.
Parker’s promoter David Higgins wasted no time in warning the undefeated heavyweight to steer clear of such accusations.
“I don’t think Anthony Joshua does steroids,” Higgins told Sport Radio. “I think he trains very hard to the point of boring. I don’t know why he (Parker) said it. The advice from myself will be to drop it and stick to the things we know.”
