Parker dominates Leapai, stops him in 10
Parker cruised in this showcase performance.
Joseph Parker (26-2, 20 KOs) put on the performance he was looking for tonight, completely dominating Alex Leapai (32-8-4, 26 KOs) over 10 rounds of action before the referee was forced to step in to stop the fight. The official stoppage came at 2:18 of Round 10.
Parker started the fight quickly, landing hard combinations to the body and head. Parker would visibly hurt Leapai in the opening round of the fight, looking like the fight could be stoppage just as soon as it began, but Leapai proved his ability to take a lot of good shots.
As the fight wore on Leapai was taking so many punches that all he could really do was cover up while trying to march forward as much as he could. But with Parker landing so many heavy blows, Leapai just didn’t have anything in the tank to return fire with. Parker continued to box well as the fight continued, and with Leapai punching less and less and taking more and more, it started to get into uncomfortable territory. It was clear at that point that the competition was over, so once the referee saw Parker start to tee off on Leapai again in the 10th round, he had finally seen enough and stepped in to halt the fight.
With the win Parker says he hopes to find himself back in the heavyweight mix, looking to reclaim a major world title.
Final CompuBox stats has Parker landing 198 of 545 total punches (36.3%), with Lepai landing only a measly 42 of 217 total punches (19.4%).