After the exhilarating heavyweight fight we witnessed last weekend at Wembley Stadium, hopes were high that the WBO fight, in Auckland, between Joseph Parker and Razvan Cojanu could match the thriller served up by Anthony Joshua and Wladimir Klitschko.
Sadly, it didn?t with the fight being a somewhat drab affair.
Originally scheduled to defend his WBO crown against Hughie Fury, Parker was forced to find a replacement opponent when Hughie Fury pulled out with an injury.
Cojanu stepped into the void, having originally been in Parker?s sparring camp.
Throughout the twelve rounds Cojanu proved to be a durable opponent with Parker never really looking like stopping him, despite the occasional sporadic flurry of punches.
After twelve rounds of pretty average entertainment the fight went to the judges score-cards with the result being given as:
? 119 ? 108
? 117 ? 110
? 117 ? 110
all in favour of Parker.
Parker, now unbeaten in 23 fights, is looking to fight away from his native New Zealand, confirming after the fight,
‘You can all see why we bring Razvan into camp for us. He put on a great fight.
‘I’ve done my best to keep fights here in New Zealand but it’s down to us to go and get some exposure overseas now.’
There has been talk of Parker being a future opponent for Anthony Joshua and perhaps taking a warm-up fight to introduce himself to the British boxing crowd, but on the evidence of the bout earlier today, Parker doesn?t look in the same class as our own AJ.
Parker Retains WBO Heavyweight Crown
