That was a truly dreadful fight. After twelve hideous rounds of pure slop, Joseph Parker has retained his WBO heavyweight title with a majority decision win over Hughie Fury. There is some controversy about the scorecards, I guess, but I don’t know how anyone could really care after watching that.
I am just going to be blunt here. That was horrific. Hughie Fury (20-1, 10 KOs) “boxed off the back foot” all night, which is a euphemism to politely say that he ran away from the fight. The idea that someone was running is almost as overused by boxing fans as the word robbery, but in this case it applies. Joseph Parker (24-0, 18 KOs) looked almost as bad trying to catch him as he flailed away helplessly at the wind. This was some Road Runner v Wile E Coyote type farce without the charm. I have been resistant to the idea that Parker has regressed, but maybe it is time to get him with a major trainer.
So, the scores. I scored it 115-113 Fury, but really it probably should have been a 0-0 no contest because no fight took place. If a shot did get landed in a round, it was probably a panicked counter from Hughie when Parker got too close and made him near wet himself, but more often than not no shots were landed at all.
Objectively I know the 118-110 cards for Parker were objectively ridiculous, but can you really get riled up about it? If you’re someone who just watched Hughie Fury refuse to fight for twelve rounds and is now angry that he didn’t win a fight based on that performance, seek help beyond this website. No one won that fight. They could have scored it a shutout for Parker, for Fury, or for Canelo Alvarez and I wouldn’t care. It at least felt karmatically satisfying to not watch him get rewarded with a heavyweight strap for that.
