Monday, December 20, 2021

Boxing Challenge: Parker repeats against Chisora

 The boxing challenge finished up the 2021 season on Saturday with four fights and two of them loaded with action.

In London, Joseph Parker won a unanimous decision in his rematch with Derek Chisora in a fight that was a better one than their original but the story in defeat was the effort by Chisora, who easily could have cashed in at several times during the fight and yet battled through in one of the more courageous efforts that you'll see.

Parker would knock down Chisora in the seventh and in both the fourth and eighth rounds, Parker would drive Chisora into the ropes with Chisora using the ropes to stay upright and was rightfully scored knockdowns on both occasions.

On each occasion, Chisora would walk to a corner, anchor himself against the corner post, and wave Parker in and would then begin to fire enough wild punches to pull himself together to survive the round.

Parker was far more aggressive than in his first fight against Chisora and used the jab to set up the right hand rather than box off his back foot.

Parker's right uppercut was the key difference this time as it seemed that it found Chisora with every attempt and it was the uppercut that scored all three official knockdowns.

Parker won on all three cards and was closer than I expected ( 115-110, 115-111, and a surprising 114-112 card that would have seen Chisora win on one card without knockdowns) as my card had Parker winning 117-108.

Parker keeps himself in line for a future try at a title shot (Parker is ranked in the top five in three of the four organizations) while Chisora will continue to grab good paydays as a gatekeeper in the division.

DAZN returned in the evening with the final card of the year from Golden Boy with the main event that was much more entertaining than expected as Gilberto Ramirez earned the mandatory contender spot for WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol with a tenth round knockout over Yuneski Gonzalez.

No knockdowns in this one but plenty of toe-to-toe exchanges that were generally dominated by Ramirez with Gonzalez scoring enough to keep Ramirez honest and make the fight an entertaining one.

I had Ramirez well ahead in the fight at 88-84.

For Ramirez, it was an entertaining win and it does seem that the reluctant super-middleweight champion has developed into an aggressive light heavyweight and I'm looking forward to a Ramirez challenge of Dmitry Bivol.

On the undercard, Lamont Roach dominated Rene Alvarado and won a unanimous decision in a battle of top ten junior lightweights.

I scored Roach a 99-91 winner.

In Minneapolis on Fox, super middleweight David Morrell stopped Alantez Fox in four rounds in a fight that I haven't had time to watch yet.

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