Heavyweight championship fights have always been special to me since I sat under a blanket with my brother watching fight tapes on a little super 8 projector that I saved up and bought from Ring magazine as a star-struck 12-year-old who had just found Muhammad.
It came with 2 film reels, one was Joe Louis, the famed Brown Bomber despatching his opponents in clinical fashion with that beautiful jab and a short jarring right which put giants to sleep.
The other was my hero “The Greatest” yes Muhammad Ali, who came to my attention two years earlier as he defied belief and shook the world once more knocking out the undefeated heavyweight champion George Foreman in 8 unbelievable rounds.
The other tape in question though was his fight with another undefeated heavyweight legend Smoking Joe Frazier, the first of 3 classic encounters these two boxing titans would have.
Almost 50 years have past but the childlike excitement has never waned, however, the audience has considerably grown as I sat with 80000 for the company as the first heavyweight unification fight on British soil got underway.
Anthony Joshua, the massively popular London man, who has captivated a nation since winning super heavyweight gold at the 2012 Olympic games faced New Zealand’s undefeated WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker.
The atmosphere was pure electric as the bell sounded and Joshua took centre ring looking to impose himself on the considerably smaller Parker behind a long left jab. Neither man was willing to engage as they respectfully looked for openings.
This would remain the pattern throughout the fight, made frustratingly worse by an over-cautious referee, Italian Guiseppe Quartarone, who stopped the action the moment the fighters started to fight! Time and time again he broke up the slightest evidence of aggression from either man stopping the contest from ever catching alight.
Joshua for his part looked improved at long range, looking sharper and more athletic, behind a high held guard and excellent jab he was able to dominate from long range. Parker did try on occasion to get inside where he needed to test Joshua’s resistance and stamina, but the aptly named ref Mr Quartarone would be there to relieve us of any pain being injected into the fight.
It did seem that Joseph Parker had resigned himself to defeat in the later stages of the contest and he disappointedly didn’t give an all-out effort in the final few rounds, as he looked to be the first man to take Joshua the full 12 rounds for the first time in his professional career.
As the final bell sounded it was Joshua who was still in control and his stamina was never an issue in what was a fairly undemanding affair, however, the judges’ scores were wider than I had the fight but Joshua was a clear winner and added the WBO belt to his IBF and WBA Heavyweight haul.
Anthony Joshua closes in on heavyweight supremacy but his biggest challenges still lie ahead as promoter Eddie Hearn looks to unify all the belts with a terrific matchup against WBC champion Deontay Wilder, which would be another clash of undefeated champions, and the boxing world still awaits the word of when they will unleash the FURY……
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