We saw two incomplete rounds against a slow hippopotamus. You can't make any conclusions out of that.
Parker has always had a chance of beating Dubois but last night showed us very little as basically Parker knocked out a fighter who had not gone through a training camp. Beating an unfit Bakole leaves no sort of yardstick what so ever in relation to how he would have performed had it been Dubois in the ring last night and not Bakole. Also I am still not sold on the weight that Parker came in at for this Bakole fight. Parker’s good run of fights had seen his wins all come with him being under 250lbs iirc so for me the jury is still out on Parker fighting at this higher weight especially after his loss to Joyce at his previous highest weight for a contest .
You cannot judge anything based on him facing a lump of lard last night. No idea if he is at Dubois level at this stage. Look at how he went 12 rounds with Zhang, and Kabayel literally destroyed Big Bang. One would argue Kabayel is now above him in the pecking order along with Dubois.
Every man and his dog discredited parkers victory over Zhang based on age, but Kabayel gets over Parker in the rankings by beating an older version? Funny how this forum works sometimes.
The main thing it shows is that Parker does have the power for one punch KO at this level, something which a lot of people have previously doubted. Bakole is a 300+lbs man who previously had a decent chin. I'm sure people will say Bakole was not prepared, but that was known prior to the fight and still hardly anyone was saying that Parker was going to destroy him in two rounds like that, instead the opposite, a lot of people were saying Bakole would be Parker in four. We can't say whether he would have beaten Dubois last night, but I think as a result of the Bakole fight Parker will be less of an underdog and going forward and had a better chance of beating Dubois than most people gave him credit for.
A clearly unfit Bakole. Using that is like using the AJ Ngannou knockout as to why AJ would have Knocked Dubois out. It’s very different when you actually have the real deal in front of you.
