Joseph Parker vs Razvan Cojanu: Don’t Freak, He Still Won
It wasn’t the fight we’d hoped to see, that’s for sure. It definitely won’t have done any good for the PR problems that Sky TV are facing over their pricings either – fifty bucks for that!? And there’s no doubting that the sport of boxing won’t have won any new fans in New Zealand on Saturday night, on top of it all.
Which is a shame because a New Zealand fighter defended a world title in comfortable, if not commanding, fashion in front of a local crowd in what will probably prove his last home fight for quite a while. They’ve been selling Joseph Parker fights as his ‘last in NZ’ for at least the last three times but this time it’s actually legit. The heavyweight pendulum is shifting towards England these days and Parker is finally poised to take the challenge overseas. Coulda been a better send-off, but a win is a win and the only thing that changed here was the narrative and even that’s pretty sketchy.
There’s heaps that needs to be kept in context here. Razvan Cojanu was a late call-up after Hughie Fury got hurt. There were only two weeks for both fighters to prepare for the adjusted bout and they’d been in sparring together as recently as a couple months back, lending a bit of familiarity and also probably dropping a few prep secrets as well. The fight had to be moved from Spark Arena (formerly known as Vector) in the city-centre to the Vodafone Events Centre in Manukau because of the lower profile opponent. They lost sponsors with the late change as well – there wasn’t a Burger King logo to be seen!
Lots of compromise and exception. Cojanu’s manager John Arthur was a bit pissed at the way negotiations had unfolded with a few contract disputes, particularly over the rematch clause, but that’s to be expected with such a short window of negotiation. Cojanu himself had 12 days to prepare and therefore couldn’t come up with a decent gameplan.
What was especially foreboding was the report a day or two before the fight that Parker was dealing with a few niggling injuries, a little exhaustion after a busy schedule the last year and a half. Why do you say that stuff so close to a bout unless you’re trying to lower expectations? Then Parker went and weighed in a couple kilos over what he was aiming for and another question mark had been tacked onto this matchup. These aren’t excuses for a sloppy fight but, yeah, context is important – especially when looking at Joe’s next move.
Razvan Cojanu said all along that he’d surprise some people. He backed himself to win and lamented, fairly enough, the lack of respect he was getting in the build-up. But once he took the ring it was pretty clear he wasn’t in it to win it. The big Romanian knew he had the reach against Parker and he took advantage of that by backing away, staying at a distance. He fought it like a sparring partner. Parker tried to ease into the first round and it took him a few minutes before he was keen enough to really breach that distance between them for anything other than a quick in-and-out jab or two. When he did show some ambition, Cojanu put up the blockers, rode the hits and then dropped his hands and started goading Joe with a few shrugs and raised brows.
Parker bossed the first couple rounds without really taking a shot in return. With Cojanu resisting the urge to connect with a few counters, he also protected himself from the big shots – Parker hardly ever hit him where he didn’t have his guard up. Parker might have been better off trying to change a few angles, focus more on the body shots and maybe try set up the crunching upper cut (like Joshua did Klitschko with) but no, that didn’t happen. As for Cojanu, he was probably waiting for Joe to get frisky before he was willing to do the same. That hardly happened… hence the fight we saw.
In the third Joe got pegged for pushing his glove through Raz’s face, the first sign of frustration after being on the end of Cojanu’s showboating from the start. There was a warning for both fighters and then Cojanu was docked a point for pressuring the back of Parker’s neck in the next round. It was soft… but he woulda got penalised eventually anyway, he never stopped.
The fifth round was the first where you could make a case that Cojanu won it. On first viewing it felt like Parker strolled to all twelve rounds but watching the fight again, perhaps he snuck one in the middle there, going over the top a couple times with that right hand against what was becoming a slightly complacent Joe. He didn’t get hit for four rounds so he wasn’t protecting himself off his jab too well. Suddenly Cojanu started landing a couple.
There’s a saying in boxing that styles make fights. If that’s the case then Cojanu’s style sure ruined this one. The dude was slow. He disrupted everything he could and that came at the expense of winning rounds but it meant he resisted the beating that a lot of people were predicting for him. Parker isn’t a powerful heavyweight. He’s not a fighter who trades in knockouts, he’s a proper fighter who throws combinations and works a guy around. In this case he came up against a bloke who refused to open up and while Parker hit him hard several times, he never rocked him. It was a fight that needed overwhelming power to bust it open… and Joe didn’t have that. No coincidence that his two fights for the WBO belt have been twelve-round decisions.
Interesting that Kevin Barry talked up Cojanu’s own power before this one. Part of that was promo, part of that was vengeance as he talked the Romanian’s strength up in comparison to Hughie Fury, who is much more in the Parker mould of fighter. Cojanu probably does have some heavy power but he’s way too slow at this level to unleash it. After seven rounds, with the docked point and all, Parker had already wrapped up the points victory so long as he stayed legal and stayed off the canvas. No dramas there, the biggest positive that Parker could take outta this one was that he took some heavy ones in the later rounds and never even flinched.
Even against Takam and Ruiz, he wasn’t really hurt. If he’s gonna take on Joshua or Wilder one day then he’s gonna have to take more than a few brutal punches and to show that he can ride those blows is huge for his career. Although… he won’t get much credit for that because of the opponent who it was that hit him.
And it sort of looked like he ran out of ideas towards the end. There was probably an element of Parker going slightly easy on a sparring mate, also taking a replacement oppo lightly, but mostly, for whatever reason, he came into the fight with a plan that didn’t work and no adjustment. Blame Kevin Barry for that, a trainer who has set him up for victory in the past but here was one that didn’t work.
Fitness didn’t look to be a problem for Joe but he could’ve done with the odd increase in tempo. He never looked too tired from all the punching but he also didn’t exactly exhaust the tanks and that was the main frustration: he seemed to fight within himself. We know he can do better and this was a hype audition with the top guys in the division all looking towards their potential next opponents. Right now Parker seems pretty enticing from Deontay Wilder’s perspective, hard to see how he beats DW based on this performance. Then again, for a variety of reasons, this was hardly the best indication of Parker as a boxer either.
Cojanu caught him a few times in the eleventh, perhaps there was some fatigue setting in after all. More than anything Parker seemed like he just wanted the final bell to ring, to get the hell out of an annoying clash with his world title belt in hand and move on to the next chapter. Things did loosen up in the final round but it was too little too late.
Where Parker goes from here is one thing, worth plenty of speculation in the coming days, but almost as fascinating is where Cojanu goes from here. There were shades of a far more defensive Tyson Fury in how he stood, how he looked, how he pranced about with his hands behind his back in the twelfth. Against a different style of fighter he’d be a curious opponent. Hell, chuck him in against Hughie Fury and see how that goes. Chuck him in against Tyson and watch them both fight no-handed. The trash talking would be immense. Going the full twelve was a big win for Cojanu who can now chat himself up for a few other profiled bouts if he’s keen on that. Then again, if he’s gonna fight like a Metapod using harden then maybe not. The short notice didn’t benefit anyone and damn sure not the fans.
One judge scored it 119-108 and two had it at 117-110. Hard to see where you find three rounds for Cojanu in there, on second viewing he probably took the eleventh but that was the only one, maybe the fifth and possibly the twelfth but those were still highly debatable. The unanimous decision, on the other hand, was not.
Obviously this was below par from JP. But if that exact fight had come against, say, Tyson Fury then we’d be talking about a tactical masterclass. All of the criticism is based on the idea that Cojanu was some muppet who should be dropped on the canvas within five rounds, so of course this was pretty average through that lens. But he retained the belt against a difficult fighter and Razzy was nothing if not difficult. Hardly a shining endorsement of Parker’s power, nor of his ability to dominate a taller contender. There will be tougher fights in the future and he’ll need to be a lot better. But he won. For now, that’s enough.
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