Joseph Parker vs. Razvan Cojanu – Results

Boxingnews24.com

By Jim Dower: WBO heavyweight world champion Joseph Parker (23-0, 18 KOs) looked VERY unimpressive on Saturday night in defeating his former sparring partner WBO #14 Razvan Cojanu (16-3, 9 KOs) by a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision at the Sparks Arena in Auckland, New Zealand. Neither fighter was hurt in the fight.

Cojanu, 30, lost a point in round 4 after the referee took exception with him pulling down on the head of Parker. What was interesting is the referee didn’t take a point away from Parker for pushing Cojanu’s face with his glove and trying to bend him over the ropes in round 3. The referee stopped the action to warn the 25-year-old Parker, but he never took a point away. It seemed far worse what Parker did compared to Cojanu pulling down on the head of Parker.

The judges scored the fight 119-108, 117-110, and 117-110. Those were fair scores. Boxing News 24 scored the fight 11 rounds to 1 in favor of Parker. Cojanu only appeared to win the 11th round, and even that round was close.

Parker was trying to hurt Cojanu with his power shots in the first 6 rounds, but he lacked the power, speed and the explosiveness to hurt the Romanian fighter. Parker was trying hard to get a knockout, but he was too small and not able to generate enough power or speed on his punches to trouble Cojanu.

In round 5, Parker started to show signs of fading. He looked exhausted from throwing so many punches. You have to realize that Cojanu was mostly just covering up with his big arms, blocking shots and constantly talking to Parker to try and embarrass him. He succeeded at making Parker look bad in the round. In the last seconds of the round, Cojanu nailed Parker with 3 straight jabs that snapped his head back each time they landed. Parker looked exhausted. He wasn’t pacing himself, and he using too much movement to avoid Cojanu’s pressure.

The 6th round was a slow one in the first half, as neither guy did much of anything. Cojanu landed some nice shots to the head of Parker that seemed anger him. Parker than came on strong in the last 30 seconds of the round and tried to score a knockout after he trapped Cojanu against the ropes. Cojanu then landed a strong right hand at close range that snapped Parker’s head. It was a nice shot from the 6’7” Cojanu.

It was surprising that someone that tall could throw a power shot from close up. If Cojanu had thrown more of those type of punches in the round, he likely would have knocked Parker out, because the shot really got his attention. Unfortunately, Cojanu was incapable of throwing more than a handful of punches in each round without taking a rest break and backing off.

Cojanu nailed Parker with two hard lefts to the body in round 7 that appeared to hurt him. Parker got on his bike and started moving around the ring after getting hit with those shots. Parker did very little in this round. He might have been feeling the effects of those body shots. Whatever it was, Parker was moving constantly, looking tired, and not showing much ambition.

In round 8, Parker came back strong in throwing a lot of punches in trying to hurt Cojanu. It didn’t work, but it looked impressive at least. At the end of the round, Parker hit Cojanu with huge left hand to the chin. The punch didn’t hurt Cojanu, who merely took it and smiled at Parker, as if to say, ‘You can’t hurt me.’

Parker started moving a lot in the 9th round to avoid the pressure from Cojanu. Parker would land a shot, and then start moving around the ring to keep from getting hit. At this point in the fight, it looked like Parker had no confidence that he could stand his ground and beat Cojanu at close range. Parker didn’t have the stamina to stand and trade.

In round 10, Parker did nothing until the last seconds of the round in which he threw a furry of shots, which were mostly blocked by Cojanu. After the round ended, Cojanu hit Parker with a right to the head.

Cojanu fought well in the 11th in hitting a tired looking Parker with some big power shots to the head. This was by far Cojanu’s best round of the fight.

Both fighters went at it in the 12th round, especially in the last seconds. Parker tried his best to get a knockout, but the power and the snap on his punches were not there. Cojanu landed a right hand at the end of the fight. It was another round for Parker.

This was a match between 2 sparring partners. Both Parker and Cojanu have been sparring partners at times during their careers. Unfortunately, tonight’s fight looked like a sparring match rather than an actual fight. Cojanu was constantly talking to Parker during the fight, taunting him, and mugging to the audience. Cojanu reminded me a lot of journeyman Jason Gavern with the way that he was stick his arms out to his sides and yell everyone once in a while.

Parker didn’t take the taunting too well, as he seemed upset and frustrated through most of the fight. Parker was trying to knock Cojanu out with his power shots, he lacked the speed and the explosiveness on his punches that he needed for him to get the knockout. Cojanu is the same fighter that was destroyed in 2 rounds by journeyman Donovan Dennis in 2015. Dennis’s power shots looked a lot more powerful than Parker’s punches tonight. Dennis isn’t a major player in the heavyweight division, but he clearly has better punching power than Parker.

The 6’7 ½” Cojanu was brought in as a replacement for No.1 WBO Hughie Fury, who pulled out of the Parker fight a couple of weeks ago because of a back problem. Hughie has got to be kicking himself right now that he didn’t stick it out and take the fight tonight, because probably would have beaten Parker. This would have been a very winnable fight for the 22-year-old Hughie if he’d taken it. He still might not have won, but he would have done a lot better than Cojanu, who looked like he was there for a sparring session only and not there to try and win tonight.

Parker’s unimpressive win likely has fighters like Tony Bellew and Dillian Whyte licking their chops in anticipation at getting him in the ring. Their promoter Eddie Hearn wants to match one of those guys against Parker next in order to build up a fight between Parker and Anthony Joshua. I don’t think it would be a good idea for Parker to fight Bellew or Whyte if he doesn’t have to. Those would be risky fights for Parker, especially if they take place in the UK. If Parker is going to need to take a voluntary defense in the UK before he faces Joshua, then he should face someone a little more beatable.

In the co-feature bout, middleweight prospect Tim Tszyu (4-0, 3 KOs) stayed unbeaten with a 2nd round knockout win over Ivana Siau (3-7-1, 3 KOs). Tszyu, 22, hurt Siau with a right hand to the head that caused him to bend forward. Tszyu then quickly hit the defenseless Siau with another right hand to finish him off. The fight was then stopped. Tszyu, the son of former world champion Kostya Tszyu, looked very slow in terms of his hand speed. Tszyu was throwing mostly single shots instead of combinations. It surprising to see how slow Tszyu was. Unless Tszyu improves his hand speed and learns how to throw combinations, he’s not likely to ever become a contender, let alone a world champion. Siau was having no problems landing his shots on Tszyu tonight, and that’s kind of troubling. Tszyu shouldn’t be getting hit this easily by a fighter with a 3-7 record. On a positive note, Tszyu seems to have good punching power. He’s got a little pop in his punches that could help him in the future. However, Tszyu isn’t anywhere near as powerful as guys like Gennady Golovkin, Jermall Charlo and Daniel Jacobs in the middleweight division. It’s too bad Tszyu isn’t fighting at 140, because I think he would have a better chance of going somewhere in his career. But fighting at middleweight is going to be very tough on Tszyu due to his lack of hand speed and his low punch rate.