AJ vs Parker

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A lot of activity saying it's a done deal.

Not buzzing for it but a unification fight so all good and one more obstacle out of the way to make the Wilder fight.

IMO, AJ isn't as good as most (not necessarily on here but general public/casual fans) think and Parker is slightly better than he's shown to date.

Still have AJ winning fairly comfortably.  AJ hasn't got huge one punch power and not sure how Parker's chin is so not sure of outcome but either late TKO or points for AJ.

How do you see it playing out?

Pretty uneventful. Referee gets man of the match. Joshua should get a wide-ish decision.

Terrible refereeing - but I guess someone must have instructed him to do this. Parker granite chin, technically very good, probably has a better chin than Joshua, but Joshua has the reach advantage, greater work rate, and probably just a bit better than Parker.

Ref was like, "I know your reach is six inches shorter, but I'm not going to allow any inside fighting, so you're just going to have to beat him with your jab little man"

Slightly wider than I was expecting, but they got the right man.

Very average from both fighters. Wilder won't be trembling after watching that.

Embarrassingly poor scorecards. Joshua is rubbish unless he fights flat footed plodders. Fury beats Joshua without breaking sweat

So it was scored 118-110 (two judges) and 119-109.  Joshua only loses one / two rounds.  On the radio it sounded like several of those rounds were drawn, could have gone either way, but I guess Joshua just did enough to win most of the rounds? Or a hometown decision?

British scorecards... Lol

This was a good test for Joshua - the first time he has been the distance. In terms of rounds under his belt Joshua is still relatively green and still gaining experience.

AJ by four or five, at a push. Woeful scorecards, and very harsh on Parker. Fair play to him for lasting 12. AJ is technically pretty meh

I guess the referee was instructed to stop the close-up work from someone within or connected to the Joshua camp.

So it sounded like the 6th round was the most exciting round.

Joshua seems to want to see if a fight with Deontay Wilder can be sorted out for the next fight. People say that Wilder hits heavy and can knock Joshua out if he catches him, but that Joshua is a better boxer.

kingraf wrote:British scorecards... Lol

One judge from NZ I believe - think it may have been the widest scorecard? Pretty dull fight. Parker seemed resigned to defeat for most of the fight and AJ was content to cruise to an easy points win. Povetkin next, then Wilder?

Watching the fight on youtube I got a fairly different impression of the fight compared to just listening to it on talksport radio.   The referee wasn't too bad - maybe he was slightly too officious on a few occasions, but there had been an earlier clash of heads, and in the clinch Parkers head had a tendency to get lodged under Joshua left arm - and that was the reason why the tape on Joshua's left glove kept unravelling.   Parker was very slippery and evasive and it seemed to be quite tactical.   Joshua never looked to be shaken although it got a bit clumsy in the 6th or 7th when Parker charged him.  Joshua never tired and didn't look marked.  Parker seemed to get tired and did get marked up.  Joshua held the advantage of being the bigger man with a significant reach advantage.

Povetkin clipped Price in the fifth, which had a slight delayed effect causing Price to stand up straight, defences down, in a shocked state - and then Povetkin had a free power punch to Price's head, almost ripping his head off. The referee was too far away to stop it from happening and probably hadn't realised Price was momentarily out on his feet and defenceless. Maybe Povetkin would be Joshua's next fight if they can't get an agreement with Deontay Wilder's team?

Can’t envisage a Wilder v AJ fight this year.

Two relative stinkers vs Takam & Parker, so not sure there will be much appetite for a Povetkin PPV fight, who looked 38, and was blowing after two rounds. That’s one option, and he will be mandatory. The other could be gaining exposure stateside. Might want to freshen it up, and move away from the UK based PPV fights, which have a chance of becoming stale. A fight with Jarell Miller would be such a route.

I am not as knowledgeable as many on here, more of a big fight watcher, so I have a question for you knowledgeable boxing fans on here.

Was Povetkin right to land that last power punch on Price last night? To me, Price was out on his feet, Povetkin saw this and set himself up for the power punch. To me, this was avoidable and could have caused Price some serious damage

You are supposed to defend yourself at all times. Price was momentarily out on his feet and Povetkin automatically went to finish him off. The referee could have dived in to stop the fight but was too far away and didn't seem to notice. When the adrenalin is flowing through the body as soon as you see the guard is down you go for it - so Povetkin was probably more focused on noticing the guard was down than realising that Price was likely out on his feet. So it was all in the rules of the game. Sometimes a boxer will administer a left right combination, with the left knocking the opponent out and the right inflicting further damage - but everything happens too quickly to stop the right coming in.

You could've said the same about the Tua-Ruiz fight back in the 90s. That last hook that Tua threw should never have connected as Ruiz was already on his way down, but ask yourself this: as a referee would you have been quick enough to step in? We're talking fractions of a second here, so even if you were Sugar Ray Leonard in his heyday, you would never have been quick enough to stop those punches being thrown.

"Defend yourself at all times!" Boxing is a dangerous sport - you get hit in the face and that carries risks. All fighters know it.

Povetkin just did what any fighter would do when he had his opponent reeling.

really poor fight that, id put the majority of the blame at parkers door. didnt go for it at all. at first i thought he was just letting joshua tire himself out and then from 6 onwards he would push the fight. start of the 6th he seemed more aggressive but then that just petered out. joshua happy just to out jab him and take the win. perhaps he could have done more but really didnt need to. why take the risk

Not a fight to remember, my main thought is a noticeable improvement in AJ's footwork and defence. I would still like to see him moving his head more but cannot remember him blocking/parrying as many shots with his gloves/arms and using footwork to negate Parker's "raiding tactics" as last night.

Parker was classy in his post-fight interview. He's not a great fighter but he is a fairly good one. I think that from about Round 7 onwards he realised he was on a hiding to nothing, and didn't really have an answer to closing the gap to land on AJ. At least he will have been able to pay off any mortgage he might have.

I don’t think I’d lay too much blame at parker’s Door for the fact this was a stinker... he was fighting a bigger man with a big reach advantage who fought a conservative fight. Aj was happy to keep him out if range with the jab and Parker wasn’t good enough to cope with it... he looked like most of wlad’s opppnents over the last 15 years... In fact the fight reminded me of haye v klitschko... 1 guy winning rounds off the back of plodding forward and landing a couple of jabs every 3 minutes...  excepting that Parker gave it more of a go than haye did.

To be fair to aj parker’s Defence was good last night.

IBF order Whyte v Pulev