Joseph Parker has criticized the decision to stop his fight with Fabio Wardley and said he should have been allowed to continue.
Referee Howard Foster stopped Parker on his feet in the 11th round as Wardley went around him.
Parker appeared to be on his way to victory in a fight that was hotly contested throughout, and the former WBO world heavyweight champion is adamant he should have been allowed to continue.
“I felt good when they stopped the fight,” Parker said afterward. “I wanted to continue.”
“I thought I was fine, but I’m not a referee,” he added. “We went out there and gave it our all and he won.
Parker appeared to be in control of the fight at the time of the stoppage.
Foster was also the referee in the first fight between Carl Froch and George Groves, which became famous, or infamous depending on how you look at it, due to an alleged premature stoppage.
When the stoppage came in the 11th round of Wardley’s fight, Parker leaned against the ropes. He looked hurt and the most important thing is that the New Zealander did not give up.
He and his team still felt that Parker was able to block a lot of big incoming shots. However, if at that point the referee thought that only the ropes were holding him, leaving him trapped and open to punches, that is a dangerous position for the boxer to be in.
Wardley actually saw the incident very differently and argued that Foster should have intervened sooner.
The Ipswich man admitted that when he pushed for that finish, he saw it as a “now or never moment”.
“Maybe the referee could have called a few punches earlier,” Wardley suggested of the fight.
“I knew if I caught him, I could hold the gas, keep pushing. I’ve trained extremely hard for this. I’m extremely conditioned. I knew all I had to do was get my punches off and stay in front of him, keep hitting.
“I was between keeping my composure and letting go, but I thought it was now or never. I knew I was probably wrong, but it didn’t faze me, it didn’t bother me, it didn’t bother me at all.”
Wardley thought the fight actually could have been stopped earlier.
He pointed out that earlier in the fight, in the second round, he had Parker under real pressure, who was relieved only when Parker’s right shield fell out of his mouth. This paused the contest so the mouthpiece could be rinsed and returned.
Wardley said of Parker: “He’s got 40 fights, you pick up those little sweet tricks, little ways to save yourself and buy yourself extra time.”
“At this point, of course, it’s aggravating. But it doesn’t hold me back, it doesn’t deter me, if anything it prompts me to know that you need a break, you need a break and I hurt you.”
“All that got me going was knowing that through the struggle all I had to do was get to you and I could get you out of there.”
Parker wants to settle the controversy with a rematch.
“He’s a tough guy,” Parker said of Wardley. “He showed he’s a warrior. All I can say is congratulations and I wish him the best going forward. Hopefully we’ll have a rematch.”
“Now he’s moving on to a bigger fight,” he continued. “I’m going to keep going.”
“I felt like I had him a lot of times, but he showed character. He showed his toughness and kept coming back. So I give him credit for being able to take those hits and come back.”
“I want to go again.”