Joseph Parker not only beat Deontay Wilder today in Saudi Arabia, but he did it with relative ease.
Parker pulled off a major upset with scores of 118-111, 118-110 and 120-108 in Riyadh, effectively ending plans for a March fight between Wilder and Anthony Joshua.
Bad Left Hook unofficially scored the fight 120-108 for Parker.
Parker (34-3, 23 KO) didn’t do anything particularly special in terms of his approach, he simply stayed out of range of Wilder’s devastating power, and Wilder helped by waiting and hoping for something he could react to, sort of. as we saw in his rematch with Luis Ortiz years ago.
This time, it simply never came, and it must also be said that the 38-year-old Wilder (43-3-1, 42 KOs) seemed a little timid in pulling the trigger, never working to prepare anything. He didn’t seem as fast as he used to be and had brutally terrible timing.
Part of the credit for how this turned out absolutely goes to Parker and coach Andy Lee and the rest of his team, without a doubt, but part of the blame must fall squarely on Wilder, who simply did not execute something that could really be called a plan. of game.
Despite the incredibly obvious nature of the result, Wilder reacted to the reading of the scores as if he were surprised.
“I want to express my respect to Wilder, he is a dangerous fighter,” Parker said. “Tough fight, but we trained very hard for this. We were purely focused and had great momentum. Everyone had other plans, but this is God’s plan. I stayed calm, I stayed relaxed, I lit up every second of every round. We achieved victory. Merry Christmas to us.”
“I had to be conscious at all times,” Parker added. “He caught me a couple of times in my guard, and I’ll tell you this, it’s a very hard right hand. If I had landed clean it would have been different, but today was my day. This is huge. “This is the toughest opponent I have ever faced.”
“My timing was off a little bit. Kudos to Joseph, he did a great job avoiding a lot of my hits tonight. “We don’t make excuses,” Wilder said. “We did what we did and moved on to the next thing. We live to see another day, and that’s what it’s all about. Ready to come home to my kids and love them all.”
“He did a good job avoiding, ducking and things like that. I felt like I had the advantage, but things happen. You move on to the next thing,” she added.
Asked if he was distracted by the talk about Joshua, Wilder said: “Just a little bit. There was a lot of talk about different things, but tonight we are not making excuses.”
Wilder said he will “see” if he continues his career after this, and doesn’t sound entirely convincing about his “comeback.”
