Joseph Parker vs. Hughie Fury – Results

By Boxing News - 09/23/2017 - Comments

By Scott Gilfoid: WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker (24-0, 23 KOs) outworked a reluctant mandatory challenger Hughie Fury (20-1, 10 KOs) in beating him by a 12 round majority decision on Saturday night at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England. The judges’ surprisingly scored it as a majority decision by the scores 118-110, 118-110 for Parker and 114-114 even. Boxing News 24 scored it 118-110 for Parker.

This fight was very hard to watch due to the spoiling tactics from the 23-year-old Hughie. Hughie was allowed to clinch excessively, and got away with a lot of backhanded jabs. Many of the jabs Hughie threw were flicking jabs thrown into the air directly in front of Parker to make him think twice about coming forward to attack. This is a trick that Tyson Fury uses in his fights. Parker gave Hughie too much respect. He needed to walk through Hughie’s weak jabs to nail him with his shots, but he failed to do that until late in the fight. Even when Parker would get past Hughie’s flicking jabs, he would be tied up to keep from throwing punches.

Hughie’s promoter Mick Hennessy was up in arms about the decision afterwards, saying he’s going to appeal the results of the fight.

“This is corruption at its highest level in boxing,” Hennessy told BBC 5 Live. “I thought it was an absolute masterclass, shades of Ali. Parker wasn’t even in the fight. One of the worst decisions I’ve ever seen.”

Oh my, Hennessy isn’t taking Hughie’s loss too well, is he? I didn’t see much of a masterclass exhibited by Hughie during the fight. I did see a lot of running and holding from him. If that’s what Hennessy means by “masterclass.” Coming Hughie to Muhammad Ali was priceless. That made my day.

The running that Hughie did in the fight was a textbook example of how to ruin one’s chances of winning a heavyweight title fight. I don’t know how Hughie’s trainer/father Peter Fury put up with it. At some point, Peter should have shaken some sense into Hughie to let him know that he was spoiling his chances of winning the fight with the way he was running from Parker. It’s not as if Hughie didn’t possess the hand speed and size to beat Parker. When Hughie let his hands go, he was landing shots. I was impressed at times, but he wasn’t throwing enough punches. I can’t begin to understand what was wrong with Hughie. All I can think is the moment came too soon for the 23-year-old Hughie. It might have been too early for him to be ready mentally to fight for a world title against the likes of Parker.

In round 10, Hughie landed a blistering fast 3-punch combination that got Parker’s attention. Parker tried to retaliate with some sledgehammer right hands, but Hughie skillfully moved away. At that moment, Hughie looked very good, showing promise. But unfortunately he spent most of the round running from Parker. I still gave the 10th to Hughie, but it should have been a more one-sided round if he hadn’t moved so much. Hughie showed briefly a glimpse of the talent that he possesses, but he couldn’t sustain that. The mind wouldn’t let him.

Hughie grabbed Parker a lot of the time to keep him from getting his shots off. When Parker would throw a punch, Hughie would clinch him to limit his punch output to 1 or 2 shots. Hughie would try and land and uppercut while Parker was coming forward. Hughie succeeded some of the time in landing his uppercuts, but they had nothing on them. They looked very weak, and Parker was able to walk through them. Unfortunately for Parker, Hughie would grab him in a clinch to keep him from landing anything when he would get in punching range.

As many boxing fans expected, Hughie moved for the entire 12 rounds, jabbing, clinching frequently and throwing backhand jabs. The referee Marcus McDonnell failed to do anything to address the clinching that Hughie was doing in the fight. Parker was frustrated with the holding and moving by the 23-year-old Hughie near the end of the fight. You could see the look of exasperation on Parker’s face at having to chase Hughie around the ring.

Hughie started to gas out by the 11th from all the moving he was doing. With Hughie looking a little exhausted, Parker took advantage of it by landing some really nice shots in round 11 and 12.

In the earlier rounds, Hughie had a habit of putting his left arm far out in front of him and using it to shove Parker when he would go on the attack. The referee let Hughie get away with this illegal tactic without warning or penalizing him, but it was clearly illegal what we was doing to Parker to keep him from getting close enough to land shots.

Oftentimes, Hughie constantly changed directions in moving around. He would stop, go the other direction, and then switch stances. There was a lot of different spoiling tactics that Hughie was using to try and nullify the 25-year-old Parker’s offense.

Poor Hughie. All those years of talking about wanting to win a world title, and then he comes out and gives a non-effort like this. Hughie should be ashamed of himself. He didn’t even put in a token effort to try and win the fight. Heck, I could have done a better job than him. Hughie looked like he was afraid of his own shadow. Hughie’s trainer Peter Fury needs to sit him down and see whether he loves boxing enough to want to make a career in this sport, because right now I don’t think he’s got the temperament to be successful in the sport.

This has got to be one of the ugliest heavyweight world title fights I’ve ever seen before. There’s not much to compare to this other than the Lennox Lewis vs. Henry Akinwande fight that took place in the 1990s. Hughie made Akinwande look like a champion in comparison. You can argue that Hughie was far worse than Akinwande.

I was counting Hughie’s clinches in the round. That’s how bored I was. On average, Hughie clinched 8 times per round, which came out to be each time Parker was able to cut off the ring and catch up to him. It looked really bad the way Hughie would hold Parker when he would finally get near enough to engage. It made Hughie look like he wanted no part of fighting. I blame that on Hughie’s trainer. He should gotten on Hughie’s case early on when he saw that he was giving away his chance of winning the fight by running from Parker. Hughie treated Parker like he was better than he was, and I think that was a mistake on his part. Hughie had the reach and he was the better combination puncher. He just wouldn’t let his hands go. Was it a case of stage fright for Hughie? I think so. Hughie was afraid to fight. Oh well.