Zach Parker would not be overawed by the chance to face Saul “Canelo” Alvarez if the WBO ordered the Mexican to face his No 1 candidate, according to Frank Warren. 

The Warren-promoted Parker is the No 1 in the WBO rankings at super-middleweight to Alvarez, who also holds the WBC and WBA titles. Canelo is hoping to complete the set by facing Caleb Plant, the IBF champion, in September, but with the WBO having not ordered a mandatory defence of their super-middleweight title since 2018, when Gilberto Ramirez was champion, Warren is hopeful a mandatory order may not be far away. 

“He is in a good spot, he is No 1,” Warren said. “Canelo has a fight in September and if he beats Plant, he will have four belts. Then he will have a decision to make. Hopefully, the mandatory will be ordered, but the belt could end up becoming vacant.” 

Parker, 27, extended his unbeaten record to 21 fights as he knocked out Sherzod Khusanov with a body shot in the first round at the Royal Albert Hall in London on Saturday night. That was only his second fight since signing with Warren, having stopped Vaughn Alexander in two rounds in March is impressed and says he will not sit around waiting for a world-title fight. 

“I want to get Parker out in the Autumn,” Warren said. “I think he looks really good, it was a good shot to take out Khusanov, I don’t know how he went under the radar for so long.  

“I hadn’t seen a lot of him, but he won his first fight with us in style and then he certainly did a job again against a tough guy. 

“I’d like to see him fight (Chris) Eubank (Jr). Who knows? If it was for a vacant WBO title, maybe Billy Joe (Saunders) would be available.” 

Warren admits he was less impressed with the performance of Lyndon Arthur – the WBO’s No 1 light-heavyweight- who stopped Davide Faraci in the ninth round on the card, to move him towards a rematch with Anthony Yarde, who had been due to be on the same bill until his opponent, Emin Atra, was injured. 

“He got rid of him in the end,” Warren said. “He did what he had to do but he made it hard for himself. The Italian showed plenty of heart, he didn’t come to fall over, Lyndon just boxed at his pace, he grinded it out but he landed some good shots in the end. 

“I was expecting something a little bit more. Lyndon’s next fight will be Yarde. We are hoping that Yarde will be out before it, we are working on it, but that will be Lyndon’s next fight. We had hoped to get [the Arthur-Yarde] done in September, but we are looking at October now.” 

Ron Lewis is a senior writer for BoxingScene. He was Boxing Correspondent for The Times, where he worked from 2001-2019 - covering four Olympic Games and numerous world title fights across the globe. He has written about boxing for a wide variety of publications worldwide since the 1980s.