Joseph Parker vs. Solomon Haumono results

By Boxing News - 07/21/2016 - Comments

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By Jeff Aranow: Unbeaten #1 IBF heavyweight contender Joseph Parker (20-0, 17 KOs) stayed in line for a mandated title shot against IBF champion Anthony Joshua by stopping the heavy puncher #11 WBA Solomon Haumono (24-3-2, 21 KOs) in the 4th round to stay undefeated on Thursday evening at the Horncastle Arena in Christchurch, New Zealand.

The 24-year-old Parker connected with a beautiful right uppercut in the 4th round that sent the 40-year-old Haumono down on the canvas. Haumono got up to his feet but the referee Bruce McTavish said that he’d counted to 10 by the time he got back up. The official time of the stoppage was at 1:35 of the 4th round. I thought that Haumono had gotten up in time to beat the count. However, I don’t think it would have mattered if he did beat the count. Parker would have very likely finished the badly hurt Haumono off immediately. If Parker didn’t stop Haumono right away, he would have gotten him out of there before the end of the round because he was punching so hard by that point in the fight. Haumono was getting hit too cleanly by Parker’s shots. There was little chance that Haumono would have been able to take the punishment for long.

Haumono is a decent fighter, but he wasn’t going to be able to stand up to Parker’s shots once he started really laying into him with his best punches. Parker fought Haumono much like he did Carlos Takam by using movement. Parker probably didn’t need to move at all to chop Haumono down because he had the power to get this guy out immediately if he had wanted to.

Parker was on the move constantly in rounds one and two, as he was trying to get away from the hard hitting Haumono. Parker’s movement worked well to keep Haumono from landing his big punches. In the meantime, Parker landed a lot of jabs and right hands while on the move.

Parker’s punches didn’t have the authority on them that he normally has because he was moving so much. However, Parker did a good job of staying on the outside and getting maximum leverage on his punches due to him being at the proper distance to throw his shots. In the past, Parker has stifled his own power by getting too close to his opponents when throwing his overhand rights.

In the third round, Parker stopped moving as much and began to sit down on his punches. Parker landed a really nice left hook and right uppercut to the head of Haumono in the round. For his part, Haumono connected with some hard right hands that snapped Parker’s head to the side.

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Parker did a good job of rolling with the punches to take some of the sting off. But you could tell that the heavy-handed Haumono was connecting with some major shots. Haumono’s power is really underrated in the heavyweight division. But the punches that Haumono was landing in the fight would have knocked out a lot of heavyweights in the division tonight. It’s hard to picture WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder taking some of the punches that Haumono hit Parker with tonight, because they really big shots.

Overall, Parker looked pretty good in the fight. Once Parker stopped moving as much in the 3rd, he was a much different fighter with his power being more pronounced. If Parker had stood and threw nothing but power shots in round one, he likely would have knocked Haumono out in the 1st round. It just would have meant that Parker would have had been hit a little more. Parker has the kind of power where he can get you out of there very quickly when he’s sitting down on his power shots like he was in rounds 3 and 4. Parker’s right uppercut was especially impressive tonight.

Haumono got hit with one of Parker’s right uppercuts near the end of the 3rd round, and that shot seemed to zap the energy out of the 40-year-old. In the 4th round, Parker was hitting Haumono at will with left hooks and right hands. The right uppercut that Parker connected for the knockout of Haumono was especially brutal. If Parker lands a punch like that against the 6’6” Joshua, it’ll be all over. Joshua will not be able to take a punch like that. Joshua is good at dishing out punishment but he’s only average at taking it in return. In a fight between Joshua and Parker, it would be a battle of which heavyweight lands their best shot first.

The one negative that Parker showed against Haumono was on the defensive side of his game. When Parker wasn’t moving around the ring, he was pretty easy to hit. Haumono had no problems landing his right hands to the head of Parker tonight. Even when Parker was moving, Haumono was able to land his right hand cleanly.

Parker doesn’t block shots well, doesn’t use enough head movement, and isn’t as good as leaning away from shots quick enough to avoid shots. Parker does lean his head away from punches, but he doesn’t do it fast enough to avoid the punches. Floyd Mayweather Jr. was always good at moving his head back quickly to avoid shots being thrown at him in his fights. Parker has a weakeness in this area.

With the win tonight, Parker is now ready to take on IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua for his IBF title. However, that doesn’t mean that the fight is going to happen in 2016. It looks like Joshua is probably going to take another voluntary defense of his IBF belt before meeting up with the 6’4” Parker in 2017.

The fight has got to take place in early 2017 if Joshua wants to hold onto his title, because the International Boxing Federation isn’t going to just let Joshua take voluntary defenses one after another and ignore his mandatory defense. They’re serious about wanting to make sure he defends his IBF title against Parker.

Other boxing results on the card:

Kris George TKO 3 Bowyn Morgan
Izuagbe Ugonoh TKO 4 Ricardo Humberto Ramirez
David “Brown Buttabean” Letele TKO 4 JJ Smith