In the toughest test of his career, Fabio Wardley stopped Joseph Parker in the 11th round and former super middleweight world champion, Carl Froch had his say.
The referee that stopped Froch’s last fight of his career was the same to stop Parker after a barrage from Wardley on Saturday night.
Facing his first former world champion last night, Wardley came in as a pretty big underdog with many in the industry expecting Parker to outclass him, including Tyson Fury, Dave Allen and Tony Bellew.
After a real back-and-forth fight, both men had taken lots of damage and had their chins tested on multiple occasions.
It was the 11th round where the 30-year-old got the job done, throwing many unanswered shots Parker’s way until referee Howard Foster had seen enough.
‘The Cobra’ spoke on his YouTube channel giving his take on how the fight was going until the stoppage.
“Round 10, he’s sitting down on his stool on my card he’s 6-4 ahead, but he’s sitting down quite badly hurt.
“But, let’s zoom in to round 11, Fabio Wardley comes out and puts it on Parker and didn’t let off.
“As soon as he clipped him and had him hurt he just didn’t let go.
“He’s just super fit. A lot of stuff was wasted, he was smothering his work a bit, but he was getting through and he was catching Parker, wobbling them back.
“Referee Howard Foster, one of the best referees in the business, even though he’s getting stick now, he was looking closely at Parker’s eyes.
“Wardley’s assault was ferocious. Parker, for me, should’ve grabbed hold of him in survival mode or maybe even take a knee, but he didn’t get caught with anything that bad cause it was messy.”
Parker spoke in the post-fight press conference, crediting Wardley’s power, but also claimed at no point did he feel like he was beat or ready for the fight to end.
Froch once again commented on the stoppage, admitting he would have liked to see the fight go on longer, but also understands the thinking behind the early finish.
“The general consensus is that it was stopped too early. One of my friends phoned me up straightaway saying ‘what a load of crap, that’s out of order.’
“I said, ‘listen, Howard Foster’s the best in the business, he knows the game. He’s in close. He’s looking in Parker’s eyes. If he didn’t see anything back then he’s gonna stop the fight.’
“For me, I’d have liked to see the fight go on. Parker was ahead on my card. It was a close fight. He wasn’t getting caught with anything clean, he hadn’t been down, he wasn’t hurt.
“He’s a big strong lad and we want to see a conclusive finish and it was in round 11, there was only one more to go.
“Let’s see the finish. I think it should have gone on.”
With the huge win, Wardley now sits in pole position to land a shot at Oleksandr Usyk and all of his belts with promoter Frank Warren claiming this will be next for both men after the fight.
