Boxing Results: Bakole’s Physical State a Factor as Parker Wins by Second-Round KO

Martin Bakole (21-2, 16 KOs) looked like a physical mess on Saturday night, winding up easy prey for WBO interim heavyweight champion Joseph Parker (36-3, 24 KOs) in a second technical knockout in their chief support bout at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. What did I just witness?  Bakole looked like he belonged in the ring tonight because he was so poorly conditioned at 300+ lbs.

It didn’t take much for Parker to put an end to matters, landing a right hand to the head of Bakole that sent him down hard on the canvas in the second round. The fight was stopped after Bakole got back up, which was a wise decision. Parker would have knocked him down right away if it had been allowed to continue.

You could tell from looking at Bakole’s physical condition as he entered the ring that he ring tonight that he’d made a big mistake taking this fight being so badly out of shape. If the shoe were on the other foot and Parker had come into the fight at 310 lbs, going up against well-conditioned Bakole, he’d have been knocked out as well.

You have to give Bakole credit for taking one for the team, agreeing to help out Turki Alalshikh by coming in as a last-minute replacement. In the future, Bakole needs to stay in shape when not training so he can take advantage of situations like this. Unfortunately, I doubt that he’ll ever be offered another chance like this from Turki to be a replacement opponent because there will be the worry that he’ll come in well over 300 lbs again and put on a poor performance like he did tonight.

“I think everyone knows what happens, but I’ve not seen the punch today. It’s boxing. Anything can happen at heavyweight,” said Martin Bakole to iFL TV, trying to make sense of his defeat tonight against Parker. “I’m sitting with my coach and saying, ‘Why didn’t you give me a second chance?’ I’m thinking I would recover like Parker did to beat Zhang.

“I didn’t see the punch. My coach did I was too late because I was struggling to stand up. The May fight is still on [against Efe Ajagba]. I’ll have one week off and go back to camp into the gym. I took a big risk [to fight Parker on two day’s notice]. I was not prepared for this,” said Bakole.