Joseph Parker stuns boxing world with win over Deontay Wilder in Saudi Arabia

New Zealand’s Joseph Parker has produced one of the greatest performances of his career to earn a unanimous unanimous-decision victory Deontay Wilder in Saudi Arabia.

Their heavyweight clash went all 12 rounds this morning (NZT), with the judges scoring the bout 118-111, 120-108, 120-108 in the Kiwi’s favour.

Parker was overcome with emotion after his hand was raised in the air, with coach Andy Lee raising the heavyweight in the air.

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Origins

Once upon a time, Joseph Parker and Deontay Wilder were champions of the world. With Parker holding the WBO belt and Wilder the WBC, there was talk that the two would meet so one could come away as a unified champion and continue the quest towards total world domination.

Parker did ultimately get that chance, but against Anthony Joshua who, at the time, held the IBF, WBA and IBO belts and was also walking the path towards becoming the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. Parker lost that fight by unanimous decision and Wilder took his business elsewhere – most notably, a trilogy against Tyson Fury which saw Wilder, too, lose his world title.

Now, six years after those initial whispers started, the stars have aligned for the Parker and Wilder to meet in the middle; Riyadh in Jeddah being the host. This time, they meet as top-ranked fighters looking to earn another chance at a world title.

How do they match up?

If you ask anyone who loosely follows heavyweight boxing about this fight, they’ll likely give you the same answer: Joseph Parker can outbox Deontay Wilder, but Deontay Wilder can put Joseph Parker to sleep with one shot.

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Parker shapes up as the better technical boxer, but such has been the tale of Wilder’s career. In 46 bouts, he has won 43 – 42 of those by knockout. There have been bouts in which he has been outboxed, too, and trailing on the scorecards. But with Wilder, it only takes one of those right hands to land for the lights to go out. You only have to look back to his second meeting with Cuban Luis Ortiz to see exactly that. In his fourth most recent bout, and the most recent of his wins that went longer than a round, Wilder was down by at least two rounds on all three scorecards heading into the seventh round. The fight never saw an eighth.

Wilder will have the reach advantage in this match-up, too, so Parker is going to have to be very smart about when he chooses to attack and can’t let himself be caught standing still. However, Parker has been the vastly more active fighter. Wilder has fought just one round in the past two years, while Parker has had three bouts in 2023 alone.

Deontay Wilder was down on the scorecards before knocking Luis Ortiz out in 2019. Photo / Getty Images

Both Parker and Wilder have been working with people well acquainted with their respective rivals. Parker has been putting in work with Tyson Fury, who holds two KO wins and a draw in three fights against Wilder. Wilder brought former Parker rival Junior Fa - who also competes on this weekend’s card - into camp for sparring, while his coach Malik Scott is a former sparring partner of Parker’s.

Who else is on the card?

Fellow New Zealand heavyweight Junior Fa will fight highly touted and unbeaten Cuban Frank Sanchez in one of the card’s earliest battles. It’s a return to elite-level competition for WBA No 10-ranked Fa after back-to-back defeats against Parker and Lucas Browne, before getting back on track with a Rd1 KO. Fa hasn’t fought in over a year, and this will be the biggest fight of his career. It’s a similar case for Sanchez, who, like Fa, has fought just one opponent currently ranked in the top 15 – that was a unanimous decision win over Efe Ajagba who is ranked with three of the four major governing bodies.

Headlining the card is the heavyweight clash between Anthony Joshua and Otto Wallin. This card seems to have been put together essentially to build a bout between Joshua and Wilder, with reports suggesting the two have already agreed to a 2024 meeting in Saudi Arabia provided they both win on Sunday. Neither has easy fights, with Wallin a 26-1 boxer whose only loss is a unanimous decision to Tyson Fury in which he busted Fury open.

WBA light heavyweight champion Dimitry Bivol will also feature on the card, as will Australian cruiserweight king Jai Opetaia – who was stripped of his IBF world title because of his decision to take this weekend’s fight against Englishman Ellis Zorro (17-0) before his mandatory defence against Mairis Briedis.