There was excitement today in the O2 Arena. A pair of heavyweight fights topped the bill and they delivered compelling fights in the ring. Both local fighters Dillian Whyte and Derek Chisora advanced their careers in a big way as a result.
I feel the need to get one negative out of my system before I start lavishing praise on the Matchroom show in the O2 this afternoon US time. What a load of crock the Sky Box Office commentary team was dishing out about that fight. They called it as a rout, ignoring the fact that the first half of the fight was mostly exclusively easy to read Joseph Parker work. Whyte barely landed any punches at all in the first five or so rounds. It was frustrating to listen to abroad and is a bit of an embarrassment for the proud network, or at least it should have been.
Anyway, the important thing is that the fights were excellent and the real scorecards fair. In the first few rounds of the main event, Joseph Parker (24-2, 18 KOs) used nice one twos and lateral movement to do all the meaningful work. It looked easy for him in there for a while. Dillian Whyte (24-1, 17 KOs) just wasn’t putting out any offense. He seemed entirely confused by the moving target as if no one had ever tried to box on the outside against him before. All he did was wing wild work that were meant to be counters, I think, but missed dramatically.
Unfortunately however, there was one major mark in his favor early. The two men clashed heads in the second round and Parker went down. It was ruled an official knockdown by the referee. While this sounds like a travesty, it was actually one that is pretty hard to get worked up about. Live I thought an inside left hook caught the Kiwi contender and it took three slow motion replays at two different angles for my eyes and brain to comprehend what had happened. To expect the referee to see that any better live would probably be asking too much realistically. Instant replay rulings could fix this, of course, but I digress. Even Parker and his team seemed to think he was legitimately dropped from what I could tell.
The tone of the fight finally changed in the sixth round. For the first time in the fight, Whyte was coming forward with punches. From there he took over for a few rounds. The former titleholder was badly tiring with his hands down at his waist with his movement all but gone. Parker fired back on the inside well at times, but he was fighting Dillian’s fight and it showed. It wasn’t always clean with a fair amount of mauling, but Whyte was now doing the one landing the serious shots. This was punctuated with a beautiful left hook in the ninth that legitimately dropped Joseph Parker for the first time in his career. The New Zealand native rose and survived the round, but the scoring damage was done.
Motivated by the feeling of the fight slipping away, Parker rallied a little in the tenth and eleventh. They were close rounds. I still edged them to Whyte, but there was more spirit from Joseph than there had been for a few rounds. He seemed to buzz his British opponent to close the eleventh too. Both men went into the twelfth exhausted. It turned out to be absolutely epic partly because of that fact too. First Parker clearly bothered Whyte with another big shot, maybe because he was still hurt from the end of the previous round. Then Whyte showed tremendous heart in roaring back, but the floor literally came out from under him when Parker landed a big shot that sent him staggering to the canvas with less than 30 seconds to go. He rose and both men were too tired to really accomplish anything after.
I scored the fight 113-112 for Dillian Whyte, scoring the second round 10-9 for Parker and then taking away his knockdown point meaning it ended up 9-9. One of the official judges agreed with me while the other two came in at 114-112 and 115-110. Interestingly, this brings up a problematic possibility. If both of the closer cards scored the second 10-8 for Whyte but would have scored it 10-9 Parker had the knockdown been properly ruled a slip, Parker would have won. I’m not saying that is what happened, but I’ll be interested to see the full cards to find out.
Derek Chisora (29-8-1, 21 KOs) picked up a huge knockout win in the co-main event. This was a real surprise for me. Carlos Takam (35-5-1, 27 KOs) mostly controlled the fight with the volume as I expected up to the finish, but it still came in the eighth just the same. Chisora unleashed a giant right hand that landed flush on the side of Takam’s head to drop him close to out of no where. When the badly hurt France based Cameroonian rose, a very similar right hand ended the affair for good. Make no mistake, this win means the world for enigmatic Brit’s career. I wouldn’t be shocked to see Hearn feed him to Anthony Joshua in the new year at this point. This would be bad for Chisora’s health, but excellent for his wallet.
The undercard was loads of fun too with the likes of Joshua Buatsi, Katie Taylor, David Allen, Conor Benn, Frank Buglioni, and Anthony Fowler picking up wins, but I’ll cover those on Under the Radar Fight Results on Tuesday. All in all the show was a good watch from start to finish.
