Joseph Parker top KOs… are you impressed?
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The New Zealand boxer is the mandatory challenger to Joshua’s IBF world heavyweight title, and there has been talk of the pair meeting before the end of the year.
Parker has a few weeks to wait until he finds out whether he will be in the opposite corner to Joshua in London later this year.
A powerful uppercut dropped Haumono halfway through the fourth round, with the 40-year-old appearing to get to his feet just before the count of 10.
Joseph Parker has matched the same weight from his last outing for tomorrow night’s bout against Solomon Haumono in Christchurch. “It’s something we haven’t faced before”.
However, Haumono and his team feel the ref called the fight early.
The Australian veteran has struck a placid tone throughout the pre-fight preparations, taking time to thank the people of Christchurch for welcoming him warmly. We can’t wait to get up to London and have our turn with Anthony Joshua. He said an announcement would be made on Tuesday about Parker’s schedule, potentially revealing some details about the fight against Joshua.
Defence was an area of concern before he beat the rugged Takam on points in May to claim the mandatory challenge, and as expected Haumono never seriously threatened to expose the same deficiencies.
Some questioned why Parker would even take this fight, with little of it having to do with the matchup itself. But a big left hook in the second sent an early warning to Haumono and a couple of good combinations found their target in the third.
Parker was thankful for some mid-fight advice from Barry about how to deal with Haumono’s forward-moving approach.
“Joe is under more pressure in this fight that he has been in any of his previous professional fights”, Barry said.
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An uppercut put Haumono down and out at 1:35 of round four. “As soon as that happened it changed the whole tempo of the fight”.
