Joseph Parker sick, pulls out of Dereck Chisora fight on Oct.26

Image: Joseph Parker sick, pulls out of Dereck Chisora fight on Oct.26
By Boxing News - 10/01/2019 - Comments

By Charles Brun: Former WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker has pulled out of his scheduled October 26th fight against Dereck Chisora, according to promoter Eddie Hearn. Parker (26-2, 20 KOs) and Chisora (31-9, 22 KOs) were the chief support for the light welterweight unification fight between WBA champion Regis Prograis and IBF champ Josh Taylor at the O2 Arena in London, England.

It must be a serious illness for the 27-year-old Parker to keep him out of the fight.

Parker leaves a huge void in the Oct.26 card

Having the Parker vs. Chisora off the card is a huge blow for the card. The card will be televised on Sky Box office in the UK and shown on DAZN in the U.S. But without the Parker-Chisora fight, it’s going to be hard to ask British boxing fans to want to pay to see it. It’ll depend though. If Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn can find a replacement to put in with the 35-year-old Chisora, then perhaps he can stay in the co-feature.

Former unified cruiserweight champion Oleksandr Usyk will be fighting on October 12 against little known Tyrone Spong. Usyk would be an ideal opponent for Chisora to fight on short notice. However, Hearn isn’t about to put Usyk (16-0, 12 KOs) in with the 250+ pound Chisora in his debut at heavyweight. In looking at Usyk’s recent workouts, he looked thin, weak and not equipped to fight against a high level heavyweight like Chisora.

Hearn has a lot of options for Chisora to fight

Here are some interesting options that Hearn could potentially bring in to replace Parker:

  • Michael Hunter
  • Oleksandr Usyk
  • Murat Gassiev
  • David Price
  • Otto Wallin
  • Filip Hrgovic
  • Alexander Povetkin
  • Evgeny Romanov
  • Joe Joyce
  • Dillian Whyte

With Hearn’s pull, there’s a good chance he could get one of those guys to agree to fight Chisora on October 26. The only question is would Chisora be willing to fight any of those guys with less than a month to train? Most of those guys would have an excellent chance of defeating Chisora, and he may not want to risk suffering another loss.

Dillian Whyte would be an excellent opponent for Chisora to fight. However, that’s a fight that would be way too big to put on the Prograis-Taylor undercard. You can say the same thing if Chisora were to fight Usyk, Hrgovic, Joyce or Povetkin. Those are all big fights.