Zhang was boring tonight

That's exactly what Zhang needs. Imagine if he fought Usyk.. it would be the easiest 120-108 scorecard of all-time.

 

Nah mate styles make fights.

They should all fight each other none of this bollocks about well he beat him so he doesn't need to.

That's rolled out allot around here.

Unless theyve been fighting much higher level opponents and they haven't.

Then they should fight someone on the equivalent.

Look at zhang vs Parker ffs and Joyce vs Zhang.

 

Did he ever have the stamina, I remember him huffing and puffing and taking big gulps of air around rounds 5-6 in the Hrgovic fight too.

His work rate was abysmal even for him in this fight but that's down to Parker. You could see Zhang reacting to many of Parker's feints, hard to throw when your opponent is keeping you in a defensive posture and making you hesitate to throw because you can't read what is coming.

Parker used to be accused of not doing enough too, because he used to leave himself open for counters and would be left hesitating on the outside fearing to throw because he didn't know what would come back at him, so he often ended up not doing anything at all. That Parker is gone now under Lee and he's actually learned to do that to his opponents, make them hesitate and not throw because they can't see what's coming back at them if they throw.

 

Yeah but at least there was significant work vs Hrgovic. He was still throwing and landing big shots quite frequently, just not as busy as hrgovic.

It was a close fight and Zhang deserved a draw. It was close. The only thing that made Parker vs Zhang close is 2 knockdowns, that's it. It was all parker apart from that.

 

Usyk is too fast for anybody that weighs 272, Zhang`s belly was huge he looked like a 90`s Foreman but much heavier.

 

Zhang had the victory in his hands and he threw the fight.

Stupid strategy, and stupid corner.

Apart from boring.

 

It's sad that with two knockdowns against him parker won probably 8 rounds easily.

 

I do mostly agree, although with regards the weight being only 4lbs different from when he fought Joyce, maybe it was just me but it seemed like considerably more of the weight was flab this time around, as soon as I heard 291 I thought there's no way he's in proper shape, and while Joyce definitely gave him more openings to work with than Parker did I can't help but think that knocking out Joyce so easily made Zhang a little arrogant and he expected just to be able to smash anyone up like that, the same way Joyce showed arrogance over the fact "people hit me and NOTHING happens", because he took all of Dubois shots and Parkers he thought he could take ANYBODYS shots, which lead to his downfall , similar thing with Zhang I think.

Not forgetting, Parker and Lee seem great at divising plans, very tactical

 

Yeah I tend to agree. Plenty of big punchers end up over relying on their power thinking it will always be able to bail them out, so they cut corners. So Zhang probably wasn't as diligent in his preparation as he should have been, especially as he was set to fight someone much faster and more elusive than anyone he had fought before. He should have really come it as light as possible to negate some of that difference in speed but he likely believed all he needed to do was land once and it would be over. But Parker showed not once, but twice he was able to get up and continue.

 

Yeah Parkers really impressed me, he has that tenacity that I didn't think he had years ago, and he did a pretty good job of making himself a small target too

 

Against a stiff non mover like Joyce he's great.

Parker (other than Usyk and Fury) was the 1 guy that were all wrong stylistically for him, I did change my mind a few times but in the end I did think Parker had a good shot to win this on points and so it proved.

He'll come again, love to see a fight with Whyte/Miller/Dubois.

 

I saw a bit of Rigondeaux in Zhang. Very talented and dangerous when they let their hands go but for the most part they are passive fighters who rely solely counterpunching. Unlike Rigo, who was far more talented defensively and is capable of banking late rounds, Zhang couldn’t do much else other than rely on a one hitter quitter because of his crap stamina.

It’s time to acknowledge the fact that Zhang is mainly a one dimensional fighter who can only win within the first half of the fight.