Anthony Joshua and Joseph Parker met in the ring Saturday night at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales to unify the IBF, WBA, and WBO world heavyweight titles.
The stadium was jam packed a pro Joshua crowd and stacked 70,000 deep. Both fighters came into the ring jovial and loose, pyrotechnics accompanied Joshua as he waved to the crowd before continuing on to the ring.
Michael Buffer was the in ring announcer and fight begins.
Round one through round five was mostly keeping range, Parker was using his movement and boxing off the back-foot to keep Joshua at bay. The fight was being fought at a measured pace.
For the first few rounds it was limited in action, nobody wanting to engage, but Parker popping the jab often while Joshua follows him around the ring throwing a jab once and a while.
Round six was the most action so far, with Parker landing a flurry on Joshua momentarily hurting him as the two tie up and the referee steps in to break it up in a weird demonstration, usually refs tell fighters to fight out, this ref seemed to stop Parker from continuing his attack on a hurt Joshua.
The referee Giuseppe Quartarone is horrible, during Round nine, Joshua did his own timeout and went to his corner to get the tape dangling from his glove removed, a job the referee failed to notice in the previous round.
Round ten, Parker suffers a cut to his left eye, and the same exact pace is fought, no sense of urgency from both fighters, nobody is taking the initiative of letting their hands go.
Round eleven and twelve, more tactical careful approach with Joshua randomly throwing a right hand, the fight ended with a very difficult fight to score, neither guy made any authoritative approach or offensive assault.
The scorecards at the end of the fight were two judges 118-110, and one judge 118-109 all widely in favor of Anthony Joshua.
American WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder is patiently waiting in the wings to unify with Anthony Joshua.
