Joseph Parker vs Derek Chisora: The Reaction
Just eight weeks after the Junior Fa fight, on the opposite side of the world working with a brand new trainer... Joseph Parker was able to dish up a split decision victory over Derek Chisora in Manchester and that W is by far the most important thing. As the man himself has said, it was far from a sure thing as the judges’ cards were announced. Chisora sure wasn’t too bloody happy with how it ended up. But that’s his problem and anyway it might just be the fuel he needs to get himself a rematch, potentially on the undercard of Anthony Joshua vs Tyson Fury if that one ever comes to pass.
The Chisora fight almost didn’t happen if you believe the chatter. There was all sorts of drama over the ring-walks with a coin toss giving Joseph Parker the choice and he chose to walk in second but Chisora wasn’t having that – he’d already walked out on the toss in disagreement and then packed his bags and threatened to leave after finding out he’d lost it. In his mind, it was his card. His was the first name on the poster and he wanted to walk in second. It took some wise words from his mum to talk him down off that hill... which is pretty embarrassing for him given that he spent half the lead-up trying to play this narrative that Joseph Parker dodged him last time with the spider bite shenanigans, teasing him for using such a pathetic ‘excuse’. Then he threatened to pull out over having to walk in second. Mate, come on.
But that’s an important thing to remember about Derek Chisora: he came into the fight looking for reasons to feel like he was a victim, as if the personified boxing world was ganging up on him. Probably worth considering that given what happened with the decision and DC’s impassioned complaints afterwards. Speaking of which, let’s launch straight into this like Derek Chisora with a swinging right hook to the temple seven seconds into the bout.
The Fight
Boxing is one of those sports where it’s really easy to see what you want to see. And it’s easy to be influenced by people, such as commentators (if you’ve watched a lot of English boxing then you know exactly what’s up), who see what they want to see. Sometimes that’s bias, sometimes it’s more about philosophy as there are those who prefer the sweet science aspect and take note of the touch-punches that tally up points and there are those who prefer the big shots and look more towards which fighter is the so-called aggressor and that kinda thing.
Reaction to this fight has been easily skewed by both those factors. Parker was fighting in foreign conditions against a powerful fighter who rates a heavy punch and to make matters worse he got dropped after seven seconds which painted the opening rounds in a hue that didn’t exactly flatter him. More on the knockdown later because it was a funky aspect of this fight, especially for something that happened so suddenly, but it’s no lie to say that Derek Chisora came out seeking to throw a lot of hard shots straight away. He was the proactive fighter. Even if you disregard the knockdown, the sheer volume of punches coming from Chisora had him well up from the start.
Watching it live, I initially wondered if Parker had done enough later in the first round to win it anyway (for a 9-9 score) but on subsequent rewatch... nope. JP got more active after a dodgy first minute but he didn’t land nearly enough and Chisora kept sticking those pesky counters to his ribcage throughout. That’s a 10-8 start for DC who was looking sharp. Very energetic from him. The second was more circumspect, probably a toss-up round, and if Parker lost that one it was down to his lack of punching – something which plagued him the whole way. Three to five were then Chisora at his best, that was Del Boy going to war. Heavy impetus on body shots that Parker wasn’t doing enough to avoid and with the quantity of hands he was offering he kept Parker from being able to dictate the space between them. Things weren’t looking flash at that point. Then the lungs became a factor.
How you scored this fight likely depends on how you saw the sixth round (and also the twelfth) because while Chisora came out on the prowl same as every round up until that point, this was where Parker began to get comfortable. He caught him with an uppercut as Chisora was ducking about thirty seconds into it which seemed to slow DC down for the first time. There was an overhand right as well which he felt. Chisora might still have won that round because he was able to maintain his rate of punches and probably scored quite a few out of the clinch with Parker not wrapping up his right arm but this was when Chisora started missing and Parker started hitting. The next five rounds were probably all Parker rounds. Keep in mind when you look at these stats that they’re unofficial and subjective, but just take a note of the punches landed per round for Chisora and note how from the seventh onwards he falls off a cliff...
The sneaky thing to do here would be to chuck in a screenshot of Derek Chisora in his corner after the sixth round and be like: hey look at this guy slumped over there, look how gassed he is, you shoulda heard him blowing on the effects mic!
But the truth is that he looked like that after every round. That’s just Derek. What was funky is the way he was interacting with his new trainer, even apologising to him at one point. Joseph Parker’s fresh connection with Andy Lee has gotten a lot of traction but Chisora was also in his first fight with a new coach – American legend Buddy McGirt - and he looked good too. Until the fitness caught up with him.
You could tell the switch was on because suddenly Parker’s left jab began to emerge from the fog and when Parker’s left jab is doing its work then Joseph Parker is in his happy place. Chisora also made it easier for him by pretty much never moving his head, leaving a static target to aim for. Chisora’s tactics didn’t change as he continued to hunt and attack the body but at a lower speed that allowed Parker to wriggled away rather than get trapped in the assault.
In fairness the tenth round was pretty close. You could squint and see that as a Chisora round if you’re so inclined... but Parker responded with an eleventh which was his best round of the whole bout and although a lot of people scored the final round for Chisora... that doesn’t hold up at all on repeat viewing. Parker mashed him in the twelfth. So even if you give #10 to Chisora, that still likely gives you a card of 114-113 to JP. Including the point deducted for the knockdown. A close fight? Absolutely. Chisora robbed like he claimed? Nah bro.
Official Judges Results:
Howard Foster (England): 115-113 Chisora
Grzegorz Molenda (Poland): 116-111 Parker
Andrew Bell (New Zealand): 115-113 Parker
You knew the result was going Parker’s way when they announced the first card as being in Parker’s favour. When they do it like that it usually means a split decision and often it’s the case that they put the loser up first for the dramatic result. Funny that the two compatriot judges each saw it in opposite ways and it was actually the neutral judge who ruled it comfortably in Parker’s favour. Probably too far in Parker’s favour yet the most curious part is that his was the only card that adds up when including the knockdown point which means there must have been a drawn round for each of the others... which on two such close cards turned out to be rather crucial.
The Performance
You have to give Derek Chisora credit when assessing the fight regardless of how you view the scores. Criticising Parker for being underwhelming or whatever... we hear that every time. After awhile it stops being about Parker and starts being about people who don’t understand how Parker fights. He’s not a knockout artist. All of his best wins have been decision victories and that’s not a coincidence - he only KO’s those who are out of their depth against him.
You have to view his fights through that lens... although I s’pose you can be forgiven for the cloudiness given that Parker himself doesn’t always seem so sure of himself and his boxing identity. He’s always talking up the prospect of knockouts in the lead-ups and sure you’ve gotta sell PPV tickets so maybe that’s excusable. But the way he took on Chisora got pretty confusing at times.
The fitness factor was his main strategy. Rightfully so. Parker let Chisora come onto him and throw a lot of heat his way knowing that his arms would tire and to be fair that worked out nicely. While Chisora was blowing hard after basically every round, and while his energy levels dipped drastically after the sixth round... Parker barely even looked puffed at the end of things. He was able to rack up most if not all of the back-half rounds and with that he overcame the stumbling block of the knockdown and earned himself a very tough victory.
Did it have to be that close though? That’s the thing. Parker was almost too energetic after the fact, which makes you wonder if he couldn’t have done a whole lot more with that energy during the bout. Especially in rounds 3-6 where the pattern of the fight was becoming clear yet Parker continued to stay way down on attempted punches. If you’re expecting to win it on the cards then you have to let loose those gloves, surely. He was also sloppy in the clinch, allowing Chisora to tally them up with a loose right hand way too often. Two silly trends at odds with the apparent gameplan.
And then most drastically in the final round when he was well on top, he had Chisora rattled against the ropes and he stood there watching instead of going in for the kill. Just stood there. At a time when that ruthless instinct could have kicked in and taken away all doubt with an advantage-cancelling knockdown of his own instead he was passive. We know Joe was keen to stick to the plan and keep his mind active throughout but this was an opportunity to go off-script and make a statement that he should have taken.
Having said that, it was otherwise a pretty solid showing outside the first few rounds. He had a plan to beat the guy and even with the unexpected banana peel seven-second-knockdown he still overcame that to win. Derek Chisora has beaten Carlos Takam, same as Parker. The two toughest opponents that Parker has faced are the two who beat him: Anthony Joshua and Dillian Whyte. After that... Andy Ruiz is the most famous given what he did to AJ that first bout but there’s a real case to say that this Derek Chisora scalp is the most notable win on Parker’s resume now. We can’t ignore that in this sport. For all the chatter about how important KO’s can be... what matters most is not how you win but that you win and Parker got himself a tasty W here doing most of the good things that have defined his career to date – and on an eight week rapid training camp with a new mentor in Andy Lee too which only makes it more impressive (and apparently there was a flare-up of an old elbow injury mid-fight, one more asterisk). Maybe wouldn’t hurt if he leaned in more to his strengths next time is all I’m saying.
The Knockdown
The only previous fighter to have put Joseph Parker on the canvas in a pro fight was Dillian Whyte. Anthony Joshua couldn’t get him down but Whyte did catch him with one in the second round which took Parker down and left him dazed for several rounds afterwards, ultimately causing him to leave his run too late in the fight. Left needing a knockout in the final round he dropped Whyte to the deck but ran out of time to finish him. However by ‘catch him with one’ I mean that he caught him with one head clash. It was ruled a knockdown but it was a collision of skulls that did the damage. Granted, Whyte did drop Parker again later in that fight with a clean shot, an inside left hook to the cheek. Parker bounced straight back up but there was no complaining about that one.
Nobody else has ever even ruffled him like that, so to say it was a surprise when Parker took a tumble a mere seven seconds into the bout against Chisora would be an understatement. Parker was caught with his hands a little low from the opening bell and, with Chisora getting straight out onto the front foot, he left himself vulnerable from his left side as he tried to move along the ropes. Chisora sent a swinging right towards that gap and copped him hard on the side of the head. Almost on the back of the head as Parker tried to duck out of the way (Chisora would go on to be warned at least four times for hitting the back of the head, no deductions though). But you can’t argue. It was a legit shot and a legit knockdown.
It was a minor slip-up that had no real effect on the course of the fight from that point on but which very nearly had a decisive effect on the way it was scored. In such a close fight, that one little error seven seconds in could have been what cost him. That he still recovered to take the mixed decision win (and without the knockdown the other judge would have given it a draw) shows that the fight wasn’t quite as much of a coin toss (apologies to Derek Chisora for the metaphor) as it’s being represented. But the knockdown was fair and the point thus docked off Parker’s scorecard was therefore also fair so ultimately it’s a lesson in complacency that he was bloody lucky to get away with.
The Future
Immediately after, amidst Derek Chisora’s complaints about a rigged boxing system that specifically hates him and refuses to let him succeed, talk of a rematch emerged. Parker was offered the idea and he said sweet as, no worries. Chisora likewise had it floated to him and he was champing at the bit. Of course he was, it makes way more sense for him. A chance to set the record straight against a guy he’s confident he could have/should have beaten... plus there might just be spots on the undercard of a certain Tyson Fury vs Anthony Joshua card in a few months too.
But what’s the point for Joseph Parker? He won. It was close. There’s probably more room to assume that Parker would improve more in a second bout with a longer preparation and more time with his new trainer, not to mention a few in-fight adjustments (whereas Chisora is unlikely to suddenly get twice as fit at age 37)... but it’s a big risk for him which could undo the good work he did here. The drama of the ‘controversial decision’ would obviously lend itself nicely to a rematch though, plus the Fury-AJ thing is definitely tasty and if this is what it takes then fair cop. That fight would likely be in July or August and Parker’s in a sneaky place for it given he now works with Tyson Fury’s assistant-trainer/second-cousin and is represented by Joshua’s promoters.
Or... has been, because this was the last fight of his Matchroom deal. It feels like a formality that he’ll re-up on that but there are a few terms to figure out. Do they wanna do it on a fight by fight basis? Do they wanna test the waters elsewhere first? The power of the heavyweight division is in England at the moment and that mostly lies with Eddie Hearn so it’d be kinda counterproductive to part ways at this point.
The trainer situation is much clearer. Parker has been effusive in his praise of Andy Lee and their partnership’s potential and is already talking about making that a long-term thing. Lee is fresh to the role but after what he did for Tyson Fury in the second Deontay Wilder bout (as assistant trainer to SugarHill Steward in Fury’s corner) there’s a lot to be excited about there. Anyone hoping for an immediate leap in standards from Parker to shove in Kevin Barry’s face missed out but that’s missing the point that Parker doesn’t need to take a massive leap, it’s little tweaks that’ll get him where he wants to go. Andy Lee seems like he could be the guy to provide those with more time. It’s only really the next fight at the soonest that we’ll be able to see that influence coming through.
With all that considered, a rematch sounds like it might actually be the best idea after all. The belts are going to be tied up until after Fury vs Joshua. The WBO, where Parker is highest ranked, are planning on pitting the two guys ahead of him (Oleksandr Usyk and Joe Joyce) together for the interim title behind Anthony Joshua. Apparently the IBF are doing similar things with Michael Hunter and Filip Hrgovic, also both ranked just ahead of Parker in those standings. Parker’s not even ranked top fifteen by the messy WBA list while the WBC doesn’t really offer him much else either unless he wants to take an even bigger risk against someone like Luis Ortiz.
The prospect of an Andy Ruiz rematch would be useful. Ruiz had a convincing win over Chris Arreola later on the same Sunday NZT as Parker’s win over Chisora, though it sounds like he and Luis Ortiz might be dancing next which takes even more options off the table for Parker who specifically said after the Junior Fa bout that he wants to get back to fighting 3-4 times a year. The best case scenario for his career stakes would be a Dillian Whyte rematch on the Fury-AJ undercard where he’d get to be the one trying to right the wrongs of last time, same as Chisora would be against him. Hard to know where he stands right now is the problem. Until a Fury-Joshua fight is confirmed the rest of the dominoes are yet to fall.
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