BREAKING: Joseph #Parker Defeats Deontay #Wilder By UD 12 [VIDEO]—Former world champions Deontay Wilder and Joseph Parker met in the ring as they looked to relaunch their careers at the ‘Day of Reckoning’ in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Wilder was looking to put himself in prime position for a 2024 heavyweight clash against Anthony Joshua, but it was Parker who emerged the more convincing fighter, and earned a unanimous victory.
Joseph Parker grabbed a huge win as he secured a unanimous decision win over Deontay Wilder in the co-main event in Riyadh live on TNT Sports Box Office.
Wilder met former world champion Parker in Saudi Arabia as part of the ‘Day of Reckoning’ as the co-main event before Anthony Joshua faced Otto Wallin as the headliner.
Parker was looking to stay in contention for world title fights, having last beaten Simon Kean as part of a run of three wins following his defeat to Joe Joyce.
The New Zealander trains in Morecambe with Wilder’s nemesis, WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury, while Wilder has been looking to put his game back together after his losing trilogy series with Fury.
His only fight since then has been a first-round win over Robert Helenius, giving rise to suspicions that there would be vulnerability borne of inactivity, but he has been working with Malik Scott to refine his game, though his greatest strength remained his unmatched punching power.
The 38-year-old needed a victory in the hope that he would be able to finally meet Joshua, in a fight planned for 2024. The winner of that fight would be in prime position to take on the winner of Fury vs. Oleksandr Usyk, or challenge for any vacated belt.
Parker held the centre of the ring at the start of the first round, and the pre-fight theories suggested that the New Zealander needed to see out the rounds to win, while staying out of range of the fearsome strength of the ‘Bronze Bomber’.
Such is the ability of Wilder to end fights in less than a second, the onus was on his opponent to stay focused, but the fourth round saw the phoney war ended as they exchanged some heavy right-handers, and into the fifth round, it looked like the former WBO champion was ahead on the scorecards.
The sixth saw Wilder let his hands go as he knew he had to open up his opponent for his right hand, but two rounds later, everything had switched up. An overhand right from Parker had Wilder rattled, his legs gone, and Parker went in for the kill in the corner and had the referee looking in case he needed to step in, but the American managed to ride out the remainder of the eighth.
Wilder was looking lean and lithe, but he remained oddly static into the championship rounds, and was regularly getting caught by Parker, and it was all on Wilder in the final round.
The two of them went at it hard in the final round but Parker held his own for a huge victory with a scorecard of 118-111, 118-110, 120-108.
