Tag: Joseph Parker

Wardley defeats Parker in thudding brawl

In a pulsating encounter in London, Fabio Wardley of Ipswich found a way to stop Kiwi Joseph Parker in the 11th round and in doing so positioned himself as Oleksandr Usyk’s next opponent for the Undisputed Heavyweight title. Wardley’s rise from the anonymity and peculiarities of White-Collar boxing to the cusp of such opportunity is both romantic in its appeal and astonishing in its reach.  

He boxes in a way that both highlights his lack of Amateur experience and demonstrates strong, natural intuition and a sense he is empowered by liberation from any pursuit of technical excellence. The evidence of tough moments, spread across several of his recent fights at increasingly elevated levels, substantiates the idea that technical proficiency, while admirable, is not the sole arbiter on Fight Night. Wardley, in another of his erudite post-fight interviews, spoke of his resilience of spirit and aggressive style that cares little for prevailing convention and the reliability of his instinct and willingness to trade.  

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Four forgotten British Heavyweight World title challenges

First published at Roundtable

As Fabio Wardley prepared for the weekend and his fight with New Zealand’s smiling bomber, Joseph Parker, he becomes the latest British puncher to challenge for a version of the world title. His, like many others, is a tale of the unexpected given the Ipswich man had no Amateur fights and started his pugilistic life on the ‘White-Collar’ circuit. 

History fondly remembers the great British heavyweights of course; Lennox Lewis, Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury – all ultimately successful on the world stage – chief among them. Henry Cooper, famous for his brave but doomed challenges to Muhammad Ali, is still revered, along with the eternally popular Frank Bruno who won the title at the third attempt.  

But there are British heavyweights who challenged for versions of the world title, the memory of which often remains trapped in the pages of time.  

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Dillian Whyte. Slobber-knocker.

It is 70 years since Orville Henry, the wiry Sports Editor at the Arkansas Gazette for the thick end of six decades, first put the term Slobber-knock to print. Filing copy in March 1964, he was describing the playing style of Dennis McLure via the words of Barry Switzer who had recruited McLure to the University of Arkansas’ football programme. This was long before Switzer’s own assent to the NFL, the position of head coach at the Dallas Cowboys in 1994 and a famous SuperBowl triumph in 1995.

“DENNIS doesn’t wait for anything to come at him,” says Barry Switzer, who recruited him. “He gets to where that ball carrier is going, meets him head-on, and I’d say he slobber-knocks ’em.”

Reading about Henry, who passed away in 2002, his status as a legend of the written word acquired in a life time of detailed and colourful coverage of the Arkansas Ridgebacks, I drew the conclusion he would’ve enjoyed the absurdity of Sunday’s heavyweight fight between the one-time contender Dillian Whyte and Ghana’s improbably named Ebenezer Tetteh.

It was, as Dan Rafael had forecast it to be on the BigFightWeekend preview podcast, “a heavyweight slobber-knocker“.

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Old man Wilder will ‘find’ Parker, eventually

Eventually, boxing always returns to the big men. Heavyweights transcend the traditional boundaries of boxing in ways Middleweights and Welters never can. Enthralling the masses; from trailblazer Jack Johnson, to Jack Dempsey, from Joe Louis to Mike Tyson and of course the greatest of them all, Muhammad Ali too.

On Saturday, the boxing circus will pitch tents in the sand and insanity of Saudi Arabia as the nation continues its sponsorship of sporting events to distract from the sadism and impossible affluence of its ruling class.

All eyes will be on a pair of heavyweight attractions sitting proudly on top of the deep and intriguing Day of Reckoning bill. American Deontay Wilder faces New Zealand’s Joseph Parker in a battle of former belt holders that functions as a qualifier to box the winner of Anthony Joshua and Otto Wallin.

There is much at stake here.

Continue reading “Old man Wilder will ‘find’ Parker, eventually” →
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Joyce’s chin, otherworldly, is an asset and a deterrent

The weekend reluctantly succumbs to a grumbling Monday, children scramble onto back seats and the drizzle of late September sneers at those too lazy to cut the lawn the day before. In the ensuing silence, thoughts, ideas compete, ebbing and flowing for those of us wrestling with obligation, the should dos afforded by time and solitude.

Boxing lurches in to frame among the unwashed breakfast pots, the dogs that need exercise and the bill that needs paying. It isn’t always this way. Golovkin and Canelo III came and went leaving little fat to chew on by the Monday, despite the generational greatness of the pairing. A tired episode in a great rivalry. The money laden, but inferior, Godfather III if you will. Years too late.

Into the wash of their encounter stepped Shakur Stevenson, the next, next Pretty Boy. He has predecessors as would be successor to Floyd and his Uber-wealth. 25 years old and 22 ounces over the limit. He won. Cemented his status. But missing weight brought more headlines than the fight. The nature of the modern mediums. Words, failure, toxicity create more wake than quality, preparation, success.

And so it fell to the heavyweights in Manchester, England. The two nice guys called Joe, Joyce and Parker, met in a crossroads bout. Was this the top of Joyce’s arc or could he continue his climb versus Parker, a man who had soared with Joshua and Ruiz already? Expectations had been modest. Joyce, huge, lumbering but effective. Parker, stout, sharper and seasoned.

Both excelled. And their bruising encounter revealed a new player at the top of the division.

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Andy Lee, a young face with an old voice, creates doubt in the script for Joyce v Parker

When in doubt, tell the truth.
Mark Twain, Humourist and novelist, (1835-1910)

Any boxing match worth its salt is a cocktail of knowns and unknowns. Proposing multiple potential outcomes, paradoxical in the conflict of conviction and uncertainty those possibilities provoke. Fight week should play with those conclusions, tease doubt, shift perspective and stimulate debate for those with the wisdom to embrace the rumination rather than dismiss anything that doesn’t validate their own opinion. A common failing in the echo chamber of our own social media streams.

This weekend’s heavyweight battle between Joe Joyce and Joseph Parker doesn’t possess all of those ingredients. As a result it had failed to toy with fight fan’s interest as the last days and hours before the first bell tick away in the way the best fights usually do. Both Joes possess strengths and weaknesses, present a variance of form and experience and offer complimentary styles too. There has always been much to like in the match up. The bout boasts sufficient jeopardy and reward for the victor and vanquished to encourage a fierce commitment from the two gentlemanly protagonists too.

Continue reading “Andy Lee, a young face with an old voice, creates doubt in the script for Joyce v Parker” →
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Hughie Fury; a peculiar attraction

Hughie Fury survives another horrible cut

How these curiosities would be quite forgot, did not such idle fellows as I am put them down

John Aubrey, Folklorist and biographer, 1626-1697

There is little contained within the professional career of heavyweight Hughie Fury that isn’t enveloped by the unconventional. From entering the paid ranks as a man-child at 18, to the debilitation of a profound skin condition, a backdated suspension for an anomalous sample in 2015 and matchmaking that saw him box Joseph Parker, Kubrat Pulev and Alexander Povetkin before his 25th birthday.

Defeats in those three contests prevents lofty expectations of his ultimate ceiling but should be contextualised by his youth and the fact all three were lost on the judges scorecards and particularly in his challenge to the then WBO title holder Joseph Parker, very competitively. The boldness of the fixture list isn’t matched by Fury’s dynamism in the contests alas. It is on the alter of entertainment that the cruelest sermons on his merits are dispensed.

But in the bipolarity of Fury’s aggressive matchmaking but cautionary style, his famous surname and relative obscurity and the enduring sense that there is one great triumph yet to be had, this observer is infected with a desire to see him box. However niche that pursuit remains.

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Joshua learns a jab is no inoculation to criticism

Like Joshua, I spent Saturday playing a role distinct from my usual casting; Joshua won largely favourable reviews for his portrayal of a cautious, pedestrian boxer loathed to engage whilst I stood against a post in the pub, nursing an almost empty pint glass, nervous at the prospect of committing to the queue between rounds. Neither of us, I suspect, gleaned the same satisfaction or contentment we would have from playing to type. He as the emotional, knockout artist and me as the thoughtful wannabe.

Though both proved prudent, these temporary alter-egos, it will be a temporary diversion for me at least, though the experience did provide several valuable and salutary lessons. I learnt much about Joshua and the perspective of those who do not need to contemplate the impact of sharing their opinions too. Certainly not in the way I do when committing them to the world beyond the pub door, however small the readership.

Joshua undoubtedly learned much from his 21st professional success too; notably the power of patience, discipline and employing a degree of pragmatism. Coincidently, a stark juxtaposition of my experience with the impatience, ill-discipline and blood lust of an evening as a ‘casual’.

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Hip to be square; Parker the hipster pick

The advent of social media has provided a platform for everyone should they desire one and magnified the good and bad of people within the three ring circus of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram – if omitting Periscope, Snapchat and others I don’t even know doesn’t demean my conclusion too unduly.

Within this duopoly of love and hate, good and bad, the imperative to gather behind a message of cynicism or forge an individual path in the pursuit of notoriety consumes its devotees.  In reaching for an unconventional conclusion or opinion, those who divorce themselves from the received wisdom of the group are often motivated by the accumulation of the kudos they require in their quest to be considered ‘cool’ or ‘hip’ by people they’ve never met. Occasionally, this bears fruit and the minority view is proved to be correct or insightful, but usually, and by definition, more typically, its just misguided attention seeking.

Over the past week or two, as the muscular Matchroom Sports press machine limbered up to promote and process the unification bout between their charge, Anthony Joshua, and New Zealand’s Joseph Parker, it didn’t take long for a ‘hipster’ view to be aired. That opinion being that Parker, who holds the most lowly regarded of the four available belts, the World Boxing Organisation’s, and has failed to impress in any of his three 12-round fights for that strap, has the necessary tools to unseat Joshua. Continue reading “Hip to be square; Parker the hipster pick” →

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Golden boy Joshua’s key victories in his march to unification

By Hector T. Morgan

Whilst Cardiff’s Principality Stadium lacks the salty history of Madison Square Garden or the indoor sunglasses of Las Vegas it is fast becoming a mecca for big time boxing. On March 31st it will provide a vociferous and rousing back drop to Anthony Joshua’s defence of his status as the consensus number one in the division. The potential unification of three of the four major belts, against New Zealand’s Joseph Parker, should enhance his stature as the sport’s most recognisable active fighter and position him for even greater reward and contractual control of contests with Deontay Wilder and the galvanised Tyson Fury.

A fight between unbeaten champions, or title holders to pedantic, is a rare occurrence and in the era in which the World Boxing Organisation is more widely accepted, it represents a penultimate step to the first time all four belts have been held by one fighter. The small matter of Wilder’s World Boxing Council belt representing the last step on Joshua’s path to undisputed status…..until someone mentions he still needs to overcome Fury of course. Continue reading “Golden boy Joshua’s key victories in his march to unification” →

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Joshua v Parker; follow the crowd but don’t follow the crowd

By T. R. Lewison

Those who followed boxing in its formative, freewheeling and unregulated years were afforded the collective sobriquet ‘The Fancy’, a title bestowed by Pierce Egan in his seminal studies of the noble art; Boxiana, published in the early part of the 19th century. Despite its evolution over the ensuing century or two, boxing remains more closely preserved to its original form than modern reportage would encourage you to believe. A sprawling metropolis of hope and deceit, today as ever it was then, the sport still attracts interest across the social spectrum irrespective of demographics or political persuasion.

The new ‘Fancy’ enjoy the reverie as much as their forebears and for those who attempted to secure a taxi following Anthony Joshua’s last bout in Cardiff there will be a kinship for the travails of earlier followers who traipsed across ploughed fields to find secretive venues in the morning mist.

Yes, much remains the same. Betting on the outcome of bouts was at the heart of those early encounters and events, like the forthcoming unification between Joshua and Parker, and only in the availability of a battery of sophisticated markets to tempt punters and investors is  a distinction to be found. While the fight itself draws yet another enormous sell out crowd to the Principality Stadium on the 31st, it is wise not to follow them in the betting market if you seek to profit on the outcome.  Continue reading “Joshua v Parker; follow the crowd but don’t follow the crowd” →

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Unification? What? Simplification? Please. Joshua v Parker is a good fight.

Joseph Parker

By T.R. Lewison

A good fight is a good fight. Nobody cared for what prize Ward and Gatti battled nor did they fuss that Benn and Eubank contested lightly regarded belts or that they were technically inferior to contemporaries James Toney, Roy Jones Jnr. and Michael Nunn. The equality of fighters make fights great, fighters make belts important. Belts do not a great fighter or fight make. To laud a unification is also to contradict our greater aspiration for a single champion in each of the 17 weight classes.

But, we don’t live in that unreachable nirvana. Nobody appears to have visited the mythical Republic of Boxing Utopia where such clarity is natural and if they have, they’ve not sent so much as a postcard, although Marcus Maidana’s Instagram account suggests he may be living nearby, and we must, therefore, respond to the boxing landscape as we find it. When the World Boxing Organisation’s champion, Joseph Parker, strides across the ring to tackle Anthony Joshua, recognised by the International Boxing Federation and World Boxing Association as their champion, it will be important.

Continue reading “Unification? What? Simplification? Please. Joshua v Parker is a good fight.” →

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Sexton wins British title in rough and ready brawl

Norwich’s Sam Sexton cut an emotional figure on the ring apron tonight, following a rough and tumble contest with Scotland’s Gary Cornish. It was a triumph built on will, self belief and old-school ring nous. Sexton overcame a giant opponent, thistles, blood, knees and wayward heads to win the British Heavyweight title for the first time and open up a host of lucrative opportunities in the months ahead. Continue reading “Sexton wins British title in rough and ready brawl” →

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Yes M’Lady. Parker retains title

Joseph Parker, the World Boxing Organisation’s World Heavyweight Champion – a top-10 contender in old money, secured a Majority Decision against Hughie Fury at the Manchester Arena tonight.

In a turgid affair, the Kiwi champion was rewarded for landing a mere handful of heavier right hands and forcing the pace throughout. The scorecards, which included two 118-110 returns, one from the same Terry O’Connor Parker’s team had rejected as the appointed referee, appeared unduly wide. Continue reading “Yes M’Lady. Parker retains title” →

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