Early finishes sour fight night

OPINION: Five early finishes and two mismatches on the night Joseph Parker returned to fighting in New Zealand will have given pay-per-view boxing punters more of a headache than those who were battered in the ring.

Joseph Parker’s third-round knockout of the outclassed Alexander Flores and Junior Fa’s first-round demolition of an over-the-hill Rogelio Omar Rossi brought an anticlimactic finish to the night in Christchurch on Saturday.

The two feature heavyweight bouts gave punters just a fraction over 10 minutes of viewing and were one-sided spectacles.

Ina Stuff poll pre-fight, 87 per cent of voters said the event was not worth the $39.95 pay-per-view price. They were proved right.

Parker, on the back of the first two losses of his career – at the hands of four-belt world champion Anthony Joshua and Dillian Whyte, was in desperate need of a win. The result was no surprise.

Fa’s opponent was expected to at least last a few rounds but Rossi, 37, who spent more than three and a half years out of the ring between 2012 and 2016, exerted more energy bobbing and weaving to the ring than he did in the minute and 28 seconds he lasted in it.

The problem with Parker’s pay-per-view fights is most Kiwis are buying them for one fight only. They are fans of Parker but not necessarily of boxing.

Of the eight fights on the card, five failed to get out of the third round. Two ended inside the first round and another didn’t see the bell at the end of the second round.

The undercard, on paper one of the best on a Duco Events card in some time, did not deliver on its promise. But boxing fans are notoriously hard to please – had every fight gone the distance, fight fans would be complaining about a lack of knockouts.

Fight of the night was undoubtedly exciting prospect Andrei Mikhailovich’s unanimous points decision victory over veteran Adrian Taihia, which went six rounds. That was closely followed by the female welterweight contest won by Michaela Jenkins over Megyn McLennan, when the Christchurch locals went at it non-stop for six two-minute rounds.

Outside those two fights, Saturday night’s card failed to deliver on its pay-per-view price point.