Dillian Whyte edging a decision over Joseph Parker and putting himself back on a course for a rematch Anthony Joshua.
That will ultimately be worth millions to the man from Brixton but right now he will simply count his lucky stars that he didn’t suffer a second career defeat.
For make no mistake, this was a hard night, and not just because he was smashed to the canvas in the final seconds of the fight by Parker.
That ensured a close fight became an even harder one to score, not that you would guess from two cards that gave it to the 30-year-old by 115-110 and 114-111. They seemed overly generous, with the third score of 113-112 perhaps closer to the mark. Parker was predictably quicker of foot and hand from the start, zipping in with jabs and not much else before getting out again. Whyte, at more than a stone heavier, wasn’t even close to timing the New Zealander, going with big swings and not landing a thing.
The second initially stuck to the pattern, with Parker making ground with a left-right to Whyte’s body before suddenly hitting the deck himself. Ian John-Lewis started the count, but it was clear from replays that there had been a clash of heads rather than a scoring shot. Parker was blowing hard by the end of the round, which Whyte shaded, and the 26-year-old continued to show the effects through the fifth and sixth. By the halfway point, the fight was about even, with Parker’s movement increasingly neutralised by Whyte’s body shots and darker arts.He crunched into Whyte in a thrilling 11th before finally dropping him in the final flurries of the 12th with a massive right. Stunning stuff.
It went to the cards and the verdict was unanimous, with at least two a shade too wide.
Earlier, Dereck Chisora delivered a stunning knockout on an undercard full of them to beat Carlos Takam in eight rounds and resurrect his career in the process.
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