Izuchukwu OkosiJoseph Parker produced a superb victory at the Kingdom Arena in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia early hours of Sunday morning against Deontay Wilder in one of the heavyweight doubleheaders to end a dramatic 2023 in top-flight boxing.
The judges scored the bout 118-111, 120-108, 120-108 in the Kiwi’s favour.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelThe other fight of the night involved Anthony Joshua and Otto Wallin with the winners expected to clash in March 2024 and the eventual victor of that ultimately billed to fight the winner of the 17 February 2024 meeting between Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk for the unification of all the titles.
The WBO, IBF, IBO and WBC belts have not been unified this decade with Joshua claiming three of them and Parker claiming the WBC.
Joshua who defeated Wallin after five rounds, had always looked forward to a bout with American, Wilder, who recently discovered his Edo State roots in Nigeria – meaning he could be fighting another of his own in Joshua – whose parents originally hail from Sagamu, Ogun state.
However Parker could be the one that steps up to the plate as his performance clearly indicated.
It was a unanimous decision in favour of the 31-year-old Parker (34-3-0) who was powerful with his punches.
After the fight, Parker in his post match reaction, reaffirmed his initial gameplans as he stepped onto the ring.
“Dangerous fight, tough fight, we trained very hard for this,” Parker enthused.
“We had great momentum coming into this fight. The strategy was to stay calm, stay relaxed, stay focused, every minute of every round. This is a great finish to the year.”
Wilder, 38, noted that his adversary was well prepared to not to receive as much as he gave.
“My timing was off a little bit,” Wilder admitted while speaking to the media after his loss.
“He (Parker) did a great job of avoiding a lot of my punches. I did feel like I had the upper hand, but things happen. We move on to the next step.”
Heading into the fight, Parker was regarded by some boxing pundits as the underdog but the turnout could now throw up interesting matchups in the new year.
Izuchukwu Okosi is a Nigerian sports and entertainment journalist with two decades of experience in the media industry having begun his media journey in 2002 as an intern at Mundial Sports International (MSI) and Africa Independent Television (AIT), owners of Daar Communications Plc.
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