JOSHUA BUATSI edged a truly baffling majority decision against Zach Parker earlier this evening, the result leaving every fan at the Co-op Live Arena, Manchester, scratching their heads and rueing the day they paid for a ticket.
It was far from a compelling watch from start to finish, with judges Marcus McDonnell, Grzegorz Molenda and Salvador Salva seemingly having dozed off throughout the entirety of their assignment.
How else could they have arrived at the impossible conclusion of a Buatsi victory?
The opening round had developed into a relatively uneventful affair, though Parker, 26-2 (18 KOs), seemed to wake Buatsi up with a particularly eye-catching uppercut.
Along with that, the crafty footwork of Parker, who would often pivot around his target, appeared to offer Buatsi, 20-1 (13 KOs), a rather awkward puzzle to solve.
Again, the 31-year-old’s unpredictable movement proved effective in the third round, where his more imposing opponent continued to press forward but ultimately failed to find any meaningful openings.
An expression of frustration then seemed to appear across Buatsi’s face in the fourth visit, as Parker, while boxing fluidly at range, would often look to tie his man up in the pocket.
The clinching, however, was not quite excessive enough for referee Michael Alexander to dock a point, or even dish out a harsh warning, as Parker simply resumed his dynamic performance.
By the sixth round, it became clear that Buatsi had few answers for the slippery defensive skills of the Derbyshire man, whose switch-hitting style was hardly setting the world alight but still, it was working, albeit at the expense of an absorbing spectacle.
Equally, though, Buatsi largely had himself to blame, as a lack of creativity in attack gave Parker no reason to present him with any opportunities.
Heading into the ninth round, head coach Virgil Hunter urged his man to keep behind the jab; but of course, one would have suspected that he needed far more than that to reverse the fate of this contest.
As the scorecards – 95-95 and 96-94, twice – were then announced, it swiftly became tempting to look at Buatsi vs Anthony Yarde, a matchup that has long been spoken about, and lose a great deal of interest in the potential clash.
Parker, meanwhile, may never come to terms with the perplexing nature of tonight’s turn of events.
