Former WBO Heavyweight Champ Joseph Parker Returns with a TKO on DAZN

There was a time during his brief WBO title reign that Joseph Parker was widely considered the third best heavyweight in the world. Losses on points to Anthony Joshua and Dillian Whyte eroded that opinion and he didn’t help his cause by being relatively inactive. However, Parker is still a legitimate Top 10 contender and more big fights are undoubtedly in his future after he punched out overmatched Shawndell Winters tonight at the awkwardly named Ford Center at the Star, a 12,000-seat venue in Frisco, Texas, best known as the training facility of the Dallas Cowboys.

Parker vs. Winters was the first of four TV bouts on a show with two title fights bleeding into a welterweight showdown between Mikey Garcia and Jessie Vargas. (Check back later for those results.)

Parker (27-2, 20 KOs) was scheduled to fight Dereck Chisora in October in London but had to pull out after suffering an adverse reaction to a spider bite. At 245 ¼ pounds, the six-foot-four Parker had a thirty-seven-pound weight advantage over the obscure, 39-year-old Winters who had fought most of his career as a cruiserweight.

Parker started faster than is his usual custom. In the final seconds of round three, he knocked Winters down with a huge right hand. But Winters, from the hardscrabble town of Harvey, Illinois, wasn’t there just to collect a paycheck. He had the best of several exchanges in round four and opened a cut below Parker’s left eye. But the physical advantages of the Kiwi were too much for Winters to overcome and the fight was stopped in the following round after Parker put him on the deck again with a combination and the referee waived it off.

In the post-fight interview, the victorious Parker said he hoped to fight twice more this year, naming Chisora and former foe Dillian Whyte as possible opponents. Winters fell to 13-3.

Other Bouts

Junior middleweight Israil Madrimov, whose ring tools have been classed as Lomachenko-like, put on another clinic in his fifth pro fight, running roughshod over 40-year-old Venezuelan Charlie Navarro en route to a sixth-round stoppage. Madrimov deposited Navarro on the canvas twice with body punches before the bout was halted.

A 25-year-old Uzbekistani based in Indio, CA, Madrimov has won all five of his pro fights by stoppage, all of which were scheduled for 10 rounds. Navarro, a former two-time world title challenger, declined to 29-10.

Flyweight Jesse Rodriguez, a 20-year-old San Antonio southpaw, improved to 11-0 (7 KOs) with an eighth-round stoppage of Marco Sustaita (12-3-1). Rodriguez, who trains at the Robert Garcia Boxing Academy in California, had faster hands and was busier than Sustaita and was well in control when the referee waived it off at the 1:10 mark of the eighth round. Sustaita, who has fought extensively in Tijuana, has defeated only two fighters with winning records.

In a bout slated for six, precocious LA super middleweight Diego Pacheco was extended the distance for only the second time in his nine-bout pro career, but won every round against 36-year-old Mexican gatekeeper Oscar Riojas (21-13-1). At six-foot-four, the 18-year-old Pacheco — who will likely grow into a cruiserweight before the decade is over – reportedly had a five-inch height advantage (the gap seemed wider). He had Riojas in deep trouble in the closing minutes of the final round but Riojas lasted until the final bell.

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