Bakole exposed

The fight doesn't change my opinion of Bakole in any way; he was clearly out of shape, took the fights at a moments notice, and was probably jetlagged having arrived in Saudi at 2am after a long flight. He did the right thing in trying to take the fight to Parker early doors, because his conditioning clearly would not have held up much longer. Credit to Parker on producing a peach of a KO, however Bakole is far from finished or exposed or whatever, and deserves further chances at the top of the HW division.

 

No boxer should allow himself to get so fat between fights, especially with potential high-level fights and with so much money at stake in Saudi Arabia.

 

True but the reality is plenty of boxers simply don't even bother to train between fights. Amir Khan was a fighter that basically only bothered t train when in training camp which was something Hunter commented on when they first started working together. Spence apparently didn't do much either between fights. Gym rats like Mayweather, Crawford, Pacquiao etc are the exception rather than the norm it seems.

In the past fighters would fight so often you couldn't not be out of the gym, it was treated like a job where you had to put in the hours pretty much every week regardless if you had a fight scheduled or not. Now with fighters maybe fighting twice per year at the world level, it seems many fighters use it as an excuse to not train. Some like Fury and Bakole balloon up in weight, others like Khan and Spence stay relatively trim in comparison but basically just relax and do nothing between fights, which shows a real lack of dedication and professionalism.

 

Bakole is a professional athlete. It's his own fault he allows himself to get morbidly obese between fights. If Tyson Fury gets criticized for that then certainly Bakole should as well.

I hope the losses of Bakole and Zhang spell the end of huge HWs who totally disregard basic diet and fitness standards.

 

Could not agree more. I think you and I were in the minority who predicted Parker would beat Dubois when that fight was still scheduled.

 

Would be much sharper if property trained, but given his propensity to eat some shots, his aura got Joyced—you know he can be put down for a count.

 

It's sad that this is meant to be Parker's greatest victory and will likely take him to the HOF.

 

Sometimes you gotta take a beating to earn fat paycheck. Better than winning while fighting for scraps.

 

If he fights Ajagba with a full training camp and gets similarly splattered then we can say he was exposed. But there's no exposure going on here, unless it's Bakole's massive jelly belly.

Also, temple shots can really mess you up. Bakole was taking solid shots to the chin without budging, but that temple shot completely scrambled his balance.

 

That's the bigger picture people seem to be overlooking.

Yes, he had a 2 day's notice. Yes, he was out of shape and didn't have a training camp. But the facts of the matter are that Bakole is extremely lazy on defense with slow feet and zero head movement. He probably would've lost anyways given all those qualities. Bakole is a lazy fighter in the ring and has an attitude like he's King Kong and can just walk anyone down and KO them.

 

Taking a fight on 24hrs notice, with no training, no sparring, being 35lbs over weight, landing in the country 12hrs before the right walk and literally being jet lagged = exposed when they get beat...interesting

 

I don’t think we will ever see bakole less than 300 pounds again.

 

...then don't take the fight?

 

The mans spent 10 years trying to get paid. To the point he had a go fund me page up to fund his training. In that time hes took punches off dubois, fury, joshua, usyk etc for peanuts.

Billy nelson the same in fairness. Years of training hard trying to fund it all. Not sure what deal he has in place....10 percent/20 percent. Who knows. But at bakole,s age and the amount of times big fights keep falling through on him.

In fairness its a hard opportunity to turn down. Given the circumstances bakole shouldnt really be getting the blame when the guy that was meant to fight went missing without any detail of a reschedule.