By Charles Brun: Announced earlier today, Joseph Parker will be facing journeyman Dereck Chisora, Chris Eubank Jr battles domestic fighter Marcus Morrison and Dimitry Bivol will be defending his WBA light heavyweight title against Craig Richards on May 1st.
Also on the card is IBF/WBA/WBC/WBO World female lightweight champion Katie Taylor defending against Nathasha Jonas.
The event will be shown on DAZN in the U.S, and on Sky Box Office in the UK.
The reaction from British boxing fans in the May 1st card is mostly negative, largely because it’s a pay-per-view card in the UK.
Fans feel that these are mostly mismatches in which the A-side fighters are likely to have an easy time winning.
Matchroom did an excellent job of adding a lot of names on this stacked card, but where they came up short is in supplying the opposition.
Joseph Parker vs. Dereck Chisora – main event
The main event fight between former WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker (28-2, 21 KOs) and 37-year-old Dereck ‘War’ Chisora (32-10, 23 KOs) shapes up to be the most competitive fight on the entire card.
The reason for that is the way that the 29-year-old Parker has looked lately with his lackluster performance against Junior Fa and Alex Leapai.
Parker hasn’t fought a good opponent since his loss to Dillian Whyte in 2018, and he’s thrown away the last three years of his life by devoting himself exclusively to taking tune-ups.
It’s clear that Parker should have abandoned the tune-up process in 2019 because he’s shown zero improvements in his game.
If anything, Parker is showing signs of deterioration, not improvement. He’s slower, less powerful looking, and seemingly incapable of throwing more than three punches without needing a rest break to catch his breath.
Back in 2019, Parker was in the process of setting up a fight with Chisora, but the match was canceled after Joseph complained of having been bitten by a spider.
Chisora didn’t think much of the excuse, as he saw it as a situation in which Parker lost his nerve and didn’t want it. If it was fear that caused Parker to pull out, he’s now feeling properly motivated to reschedule.
All we can hope is Parker doesn’t pull out of the fight a second because of affliction.
It’s very important that Parker show stability this time because he’s done zero with his career since his two losses to Dillian Whyte and Anthony Joshua in 2018.
Parker looked dreadful last February in laboring his way to a 12 round decision over fellow countryman Junior Fa at the Sparks Arena in Auckland, New Zealand.
Joseph got the win, but he godawful the entire fight. Charles Brun had Fa winning the fight by a couple of rounds.
“‘This guy isn’t going to get in the ring with me’ I could see the fear in his eyes,” said Chisora in remembering what he told David Haye after he met Parker. “Now, the second time around, I hope he fights.”
If Parker pulls out this time, it’ll be academic that he doesn’t fancy the fight and prefers softer opposition.
You can argue Parker’s losses to Joshua and Whyte took a lot out of him, especially in terms of his ambition because he’s done nothing since.
Dimitry Bivol vs. Craig Richards
WBA light heavyweight champion Dimitry Bivol (17-0, 11 KOs) faces #8 WBA Chris ‘Spider’ Richards (16-1-1, 9 KOs).
Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn is really high on the 31-year-old Richards following his surprise 9th round knockout win over Shakan Pitters last December.
The win for Richards is what has gotten Hearn so excited, but he’s failing to realize that Shakan Pitters isn’t a world-class fighter.
Yeah, it’s great that Richards beat him, but that doesn’t mean he has any chance of defeating Bivol. There are levels in boxing, after all.
Bivol has been out of the ring for a year and a half, its understandable for him to get a nice tune-up fight against Richards. That’s all it is. Hopefully, Hearn doesn’t talk up Richard’s chances of beating Bivol because he has zero chance of winning.
Chris Eubank Jr vs. Marcus Morrison
Former IBO super middleweight champion Chris Eubank Jr (29-2, 22 KOs) will be coming off a long layoff to face Marcus Morrison (23-3, 16 KOs) in a 10-round fight. This is a similar match-up to the Bivol vs. Richards fight.
Morrison, 28, has no business inside the ring with a fighter of Eubank’s caliber, even as a warm-up opponent. I don’t know who came up with the idea for Eubank to fight Morrison, but it’s a bad one.
Even a ring rusty Eubank Jr is capable of better than this. Eubank Jr’s promoter Kalle Sauerland said this week that he wants to match him against Kell Brook in the summer in a stadium fight in the UK, and that would be the perfect warm-up fight for Chris.
Morrison’s past defeats:
- Alistair Warren (10-18-4)
- Tyan Booth (11-11-5)
- Jason Welborn (20-6)