This prospect will be the goods!

[the ollie reed fan club]

(05-21-2016 08:43 PM)and the NEW Wrote:  Was Parker vs Takam as close as it was on the cards? I haven't seen it yet, but that doesn't fill me with hope for Parker if it was.

I had it 7-5 to Parker, so 115-113. Joe was doing fine in the first 4 rounds, throwing a nice jab and sometimes double jab and the odd body shot behind it. At times it looked like a glorified sparring session and I thought he was controlling it easily.

Then for no reason that I can put my finger on he just suddenly gassed midway through the 5th. The flow-on being that the jab almost disappeared in some rounds and Takam was allowed to get into the middle zone and make the fight ultra-competitive.

It's weird coz I was in Samoa in January for the Bergman fight and the heat was fucken stifling and his output was just fine. I recognize that Takam is several leagues above Bergman but he hadn't done squat in those 1st 4 rounds to put Joe under any kind of pressure. Not sure if it was the super long camp they had or all the media commitments he had beforehand or even just the occasion itself that made him more nervous than normal but he just burned out by the 5th.

It was the stamina issue that changed the fight completely, IMHO. The good news being the chin is great and the kid dug deep when he had to to grind out the victory. Be interesting to see what they make of it behind closed doors, the stamina issue I mean.