Opinion - There was a sense of inevitability around Joseph Parker's unanimous points loss to Anthony Joshua this morning, writes Jamie Wall.
Photo: AFP
In front of a gigantic crowd in the same stadium the All Blacks regularly deal out beatings to Wales, Parker just couldn't get it done in what was easily the biggest moment of his professional boxing career.
Put away the foolishness of Duco clown-in-chief David Higgins, the smarmy charm of Joshua's promoter Eddie Hearn, and just forget about the fact that we're probably going to have to be subjected to what Bob Jones thinks about it.
Today should be a day to simply acknowledge the fact that a New Zealander did his best, but came up short against one of world sport's biggest names.
There will be plenty of talk about the refereeing of Italian Guiseppe Quartarone, who seemed intent of pulling apart both men at the earliest possible opportunity. It suited Joshua, who would've been wary of Parker's punching power in close. Of course, boxing being the sport it is, suspicion flows like a river when the slightest advantage is seen to be given to one fighter.
But the simple truth is that Parker was always going to have trouble overcoming the sizeable reach advantage that Joshua possesses. At 15cm, it meant that the early, tentative rounds could easily be picked up as wins for the Briton. By simply keeping Parker at arm's length, he could dictate the tempo of the fight and bank the fact that he was ahead on points heading into the business end.
And Parker couldn't overcome that disadvantage. Sound familiar? It's because it's exactly how Lennox Lewis beat David Tua 18 years ago, except that was even more pronounced due to the ridiculous height difference between the two.
Parker's best shot was the fact that he had the experience in the later rounds of a heavyweight bout, and he can take credit for being the first man to take Joshua the full distance. However, expectations that Joshua would fade in the last couple of rounds proved to be completely unfounded - in fact he showed how much gas he still had in his tank by breathlessly proclaiming his intention to fight Deontay Wilder as soon as he was declared the winner.
If there's any conspiracy-about-the-ref-theory merit, that's where it lies. There was no way British and American promoters wanted anything other less than a matchup between those two later this year, with the added bonus of two unbeaten records on the line. Joshua v Wilder will be a massive day for heavyweight boxing, and with all due respect to Parker, will comfortably overtake today's fight in terms of global hype and attention. It'll be a trans-Atlantic battle for supremacy of the sport - not just in the ring but out of it too, given the strength of UK boxing right now.
It will probably be worth it, admittedly. Wilder is aptly named, having built an extremely violent resume over the last couple of years and providing a perfectly notorious foil for the disciplined and clean cut Joshua. So there's something we can all look forward to.
But for us, today was about Joseph Parker. His star in this part of the world is in no way diminished, and although it will take a while to get back in a position to have a fight like this again, he is still only 26. Remember this is a sport where George Foreman won a world title at age 45.
More importantly, he stands as a face of what Aotearoa looks like now: young, confident and brown. There is no disgrace in getting outboxed by Anthony Joshua, and even the most cynical sports fan can give him credit for getting to stand in front of 80,000 for a world heavyweight unification bout in the first place.
