Was Fabio Wardley and Joseph Parker’s heavyweight thriller stopped too early?

Fabio Wardley pulled off a major upset as he beat Joseph Parker on Saturday night to put himself in line to face undisputed heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk.

Wardley and Parker battled for 11 rounds before the former finally forced a stoppage to seal the biggest victory of his career.

But the ending to the fight was controversial. Referee Howard Foster, who famously waved off Carl Froch’s first fight with George Groves, decided Parker had taken enough punishment and stepped in, but some have questioned the timing of the stoppage.

So, was it too early or did Foster get it spot on?

Let’s look back at Saturday’s heavyweight thriller to try and answer that question.

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Most heavyweight contests see both men start cautiously as they are wary of the other man’s power and want to feel their way into the fight.

But Parker and Wardley got straight down to work on Saturday. Parker looked in control in the opening round and appeared to briefly stun Wardley just before the bell, but the Brit came out firing in the second. He landed a big uppercut that hurt Parker and went in for the kill as he sensed an early night was on the cards. Parker managed to ride the storm, but the tone had been set in the opening two rounds. It was going to be a toe-to-toe war.

The Kiwi’s superior boxing skills came to the fore at times as he built a lead on two of the judges’ scorecards, but Wardley was always dangerous.

The two men traded leather round after round and landed some brutal blows. Some of the punches would have put most heavyweights down but Parker and Wardley demonstrated that they have two of the best chins in the business as they shook off any punishment and kept marching forwards.

The 10th round was arguably the best of the fight as Parker landed a series of right hooks around the side of Wardley’s guard and seemed to have his opponent in trouble, only for Wardley to catch Parker with his own left hook as he piled on the pressure before the bell rang.

With two rounds to go, Parker was winning but appeared to have less left in the tank, leaving the fight firmly in the balance.

The penultimate round exploded into life just before the midway point when Wardley caught Parker with a big right hand over the top after feinting to throw a jab.

The shot landed flush, and Parker was sent backpedalling towards the ropes as Wardley rushed forward to try and deliver a fight-ending punch. He threw everything at Parker who was in pure survival mode as he attempted to slip and dodge punches on the ropes.

There was not a lot coming back from Parker who was clearly in trouble, but Wardley was not landing with everything by any means. Some punches were grazing the target while others whistled past Parker’s head as Wardley went into all-out attack mode.

Having hardly thrown a punch for the best part of 30 seconds, Parker finally pushed off the ropes to launch a brief assault of his own. However, he failed to land anything of note and Wardley quickly went back on the offensive.

He just missed with an uppercut before connecting with a left hook. One final right hand missed Parker, but Foster felt the New Zealander had shown enough signs of distress and brought the fight to an end with just over a minute of the round to go.

A referee will always utter the instructions “protect yourselves at all times” to both boxers before a fight begins. This is what Foster would have been keeping a close eye on in the 11th round: was Parker still able to defend himself?

Once Wardley had landed his initial thunderous blow, there was some concerning body language displayed by Parker.

At one point, his upper body slumped forwards as he dipped down to waist height. It could be argued that this was just a defensive technique, and he was keeping low to try and avoid Wardley’s barrage, but it may also be interpreted that he was in deep trouble.

Parker tried to launch himself forwards to give himself some respite, but his attack was a short-lived one and Wardley quickly got back on top. As Parker was pushed back to the ropes, he looked defensively disorganised and Wardley was throwing punches with bad intentions from all angles.

Parker was still defending himself, but he was shipping more punishment than at any other stage in the fight and Foster jumped in to call a halt to proceedings.

Parker had put a lot into the 10th round as he briefly hurt Wardley before getting caught himself by multiple big shots. When the bell rang for the end of the round, he looked very tired.

The 11th round then saw Wardley connect cleanly with a right hand and Parker retreated to the ropes. It seemed clear he was hurt, but he was still able to avoid most of the follow-up punches that came his way.

The moment that his body briefly slumped was not a good sign, and it was also worrying that his defence appeared all over the place as Wardley charged in for his final assault. However, rather than being badly hurt it seemed to be that Parker was simply exhausted after a gruelling back-and-forth battle.

This was backed up by his reaction to the stoppage. Parker was visibly frustrated by Foster stepping in and appeared to have his wits about him, but he did not have the energy to argue with the referee for long.

He quickly accepted the decision as he walked back to his corner and sat on his stool following his devastating loss.

Given how the fight had played out over the previous 10 rounds, Parker has every right to feel hard done by. He had wobbled Wardley multiple times, but the Brit was given the chance to get back into the fight every time.

Parker himself had been forced to come through some difficult moments and had been able to do so. He will argue that he would have done the same in the 11th round.

The 33-year-old may also believe he was simply fatigued rather than significantly hurt and that he could have used his experience to navigate his way through the final four minutes of the fight. He was within touching distance of an undisputed title shot against Usyk, but that was ripped away from him in brutal fashion.

Parker has always been a classy operator, and he gave full credit to Wardley while keeping his complaints to a minimum in the aftermath. But he will undoubtedly be hurting.

Parker will need to show all of his mental resilience to come to terms with the manner of the defeat before deciding what he wants to do next after his title dreams went up in smoke at a raucous O2 Arena.

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