Wonderful fight, wonderful late replacement opponent! It depends indeed on how fit Bakole comes for the fight. If Bakole isn't fit enough and Parker can avoid being hit for the three first round, then I guess he will find his rythm and might outbox him. On the other hand Bakole can cut off the ring quite good, and even he has slow feets his combinations, punch selection and hand speed still remain a porblem for anyone facing him. Also big respect to both of them and especially Parker. Curious to see what kind of game plan is he (Parker) bringing to the ring, since I think this is a very important part of his preparation meanwhile Bakole is just Bakole... I am so happy we have such an outstanding card incoming, I might even buy a PPV for the first time, this tells a lot! (might...)
I hate to give him a pass, but it was clear he didn’t train, given how much better he looked in both fights against Usyk. The Fury of either Usyk fight would have boxed Ngannou’s face off. pretty dumb to just assume Ngannou wouldn’t be able to fight at all (he’s no boxer, but he’s just as experienced as Fury in the combat sport game), but that’s really all it was. Laziness almost made an easy cherry pick go horribly wrong.
the Anderson win absolutely got this for Bakole. Turki made this match — the Anderson win got a ton of hype for Bakole, and then, unexpectedly Dubois needs to be replaced. The hype is what made Turki call Bakole and Parker to make this happen. I’d love to see confirmation of my theory, but I’d bet Bakole was given a few bucks to be in fighting shape just in case. A huge card with two HW fights, with Bakole being the beyond obvious sub-in that would make fans happy if one of the four scheduled fighters couldn’t show?
It's possible that Bakole was already in shape and that's why he volunteered... It'd make sense. But it was very much Bakole volunteered for it and then it got made - it doesn't look like he got headhunted as the first choice replacement, more that once it became obvious he was available it made sense. Anderson added a bit of hype with Americans and people on boards like this - casuals outside the states wouldn't have much of a clue who he is, because he isn't well known broadly. Bear in mind the other guys being rumoured weren't gatekeeper level - Bakole is proven to be at least that level (he might be more, he might not) but that makes for a more competitive fight... And the recent hype makes it less likely that demands for refunds get made... It's a win-win for Turki - he gets a decent enough replacement without even having to try, and the fans don't mind.
Indeed - that's part of the difficulty with evaluating Fury, he could (and would) take fights he wasn't fully fit for, and he wouldn't train properly when he didn't respect his opponent. The result, setting Ngannou aside for the moment, is we've seen Fury blow away an opponent when fit, and look a sloppy mess and/or gas badly when unfit (I'm of course talking about Wilder 2 Vs 3 and 1, respectively). The more direct comparison is probably Fury fighting Wilder when fully fit (ie: only the second fight) vs Parker fighting Wilder fully fit... Fury stopped him despite not being a big puncher and Parker drowned him in a near perfect points performance... The excuse, of course, is that Fury ruined Wilder - it's just not clear whether that was true, and probably never will be. (Not to mention, of course, the inconsistency between the argument that Fury was just so good he made Wlad gunshy, whilst Parker only beat Wilder because he was ruined and lost the ability to throw ).
I’d love to know the full deal. What you say could be entirely true. I mean, he’s so obviously the easy choice to rescue that fight that if he wasn’t already on deck but was in shape and volunteered, problem solved.
Regardless of his fitness level, he consistently possesses a puncher's chance; that's just the nature of heavyweight boxing.
While true, his real strength seems to be his combos. when he can string together long combos, between his punch selection and heavy hands, that’s deadly. If he’s more limited to just throwing a punch or two here and there because he’s puffing the entire time, he’s a lot less dangerous.
That's the way it looks like it went down - whether he's actually as fit as he thinks is a separate question!