Simon Kean taunted Joseph Parker and he sent him to the mat in the third round: The Grizzly didn’t get up.

• Also read: Makhmudov wins in 70 seconds

During the third round, Parker hit the trifluvia with a powerful right uppercut that left a mark, but Kean refused to be dismantled, even though he was visibly shaken.

However, the Quebecer was reckless and immediately let his guard down, inviting Parker to come over and hit him. It was a very big mistake, he didn’t have strong legs.

Parker charged at Kean and delivered another uppercut, knocking the grizzly to the ground. The official Bob Williams reached the ten without the Quebecer being able to get up, and the fight ended at 2:04 of the third round.

At the same time, Parker secured the vacant IBF and WBO intercontinental titles.

Important fight

It was the most important fight of Kean’s career (23-2-0, 22 KOs), but he faced Parker (33-3-0, 23 KOs), a former WBO world champion, Saudi, in a clash in Riyadh -Arabia, on Saturday.

We understood why the 31-year-old New Zealander defended this title three times in 2017 and 2018.

He took the initiative from the start of the duel, while Kean seemed a bit tense, especially at the first restart.

This may only be Kean’s second setback, but he will have to think about his future in the coming weeks.

High level

The fight and its shortness made us understand, above all, that the step is very high if you want to be among the top 20 in the world among heavyweights.

Kean had an enviable record, but he was still no match for a boxer who, although younger, had much more experience in big fights.

Parker wove his web methodically and efficiently, without tiring and, above all, without suffering too much from his opponent’s attacks.

Kean never put him in danger, although he was able to place some good shots. The Trifluvian was simply siding with someone tougher than him.

Great show

The Battle of the Baddest gala, held as part of Saudi Arabia’s so-called Ryiadh season, was so large that it was held in two adjacent rooms.

The preliminary fights were presented in a smaller outdoor room and for the final duel with a pompous opening ceremony that interrupted the rhythm of the evening with too much music, we moved to the larger room. We waited almost two hours between the last two fights of the evening. A month of Sundays.

We’ve long since moved on from the entertainment aspect of James Brown before Apollo Creed and Ivan Drago in Rocky IV. In the case we are interested in, the ring even came out of the ground after the last performance.

In the meantime, the big names also started arriving over the course of the evening. In particular, we saw Cristiano Ronaldo playing football for Al-Nassr club in the Saudi league.

Stars continued to show up, including Mike Tyson, Connor McGregor, Eminem and Kanye West, to name a few.

The meanest thing

What was special about this gala was that the main fight pitted Tyson Fury against Francis Ngannou. The first was the reigning WBC heavyweight world champion with a record of 33-0-1 and 24 knockouts. before the clash, while the runner-up is a former UFC heavyweight champion with a record of 17-3-0, 12 KOs. and 4 entries.

Ngannou made his debut as a professional boxer. There was therefore obviously an imbalance between the two pugilists. It was an attempt to determine who was the baddest of the two, hence the name Battle of the Baddest.

While almost everyone expected a short, one-sided fight in Fury’s favor, the 1.90 meter tall Brit had his hands full against the Cameroonian in a fight that reached the ten round limit.

Ngannou surprised everyone by knocking the champion to the mat with a hook in the third round. Fury ultimately won by split decision with scores of 96-93 for Mexican Juan Carlos Pelayo and 95-94 for American Alan Krebs, while Canadian Ed Garner gave Ngannou the win 95-94.