It wasn’t the opponent he had been expecting or the meaningful matchup for which he had been planning, but Joseph Parker continued his late-career resurgence with a second-round knockout of Martin Bakole on Saturday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The fight was the co-main event to the light heavyweight rematch between Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol.
To Bakole's credit, this was not a fight he was expecting to take, either. He woke up on Thursday morning with no inkling that he would soon be flying to Saudi Arabia to step into the ring with Parker, but after the New Zealander’s scheduled opponent, Daniel Dubois, withdrew because of a viral infection, Congol's Bakole, 21-2 (16 KOs), accepted the invitation to step in at literally the last minute.
