Perennial heavyweight contender Dereck ‘War’ Chisora 32-11 (23) is focused on nothing but revenge ahead of his rematch against former WBO champion Joseph Parker 29-2 (21) at the AO Arena in Manchester, England this Saturday night.
The 37-year-old Londoner maintains he deserved the nod in his first fight against Parker, 29, at the same venue after starting strong and dropping the Kiwi in the opening round. But Chisora faded late, allowing Parker to eke out a split decision victory by scores of 115-113, 113-115 and 116-111.
“I don’t think that they wanted to give me the rematch really,” said Chisora. “And if I was him, I wouldn’t take the rematch, I would have moved on – but I was 100 percent sure that I wanted the fight.
“Different judges score fights in different ways. What are we scoring now? For the pressure fighter and making the fight happen? Because if I don’t go forward, we can just stand there and look at each other.
“I caught him off-balance maybe because it wasn’t a powerful knockdown and when he got up he was fine. He’s got good hands. You can tell he’s bulked up a bit, he’s packed more strength on since the first fight so you can see he’s coming with more power punches.
“If you look at his record from when he won the WBO title, he boxed Andy Ruiz in his hometown and he didn’t KO him, he played it safe, he defended it here against Hughie Fury and played it safe and then he boxed AJ and he froze and played it safe.
“So, you can tell a fighter, the guys that really want to fight, he might tell himself he wants to fight but really and truly, he doesn’t want to be there.”
Chisora is looking forward to boxing in front of a live crowd after the global coronavirus pandemic forced British boxers to fight behind closed doors.
“It’s been two years since I’ve boxed in front of a crowd, it’s going to be amazing and I hope I don’t freeze!” Chisora said. “I enjoy it, how could you not? I think if you sell thousands of tickets, you enjoy it.
“AJ, Canelo, Dillian, me – we all sell out arenas and we love it. You know people are coming to watch you fight and you want to give them a good night. It’s a show, you must give them a show from the walkout to the last bell.
“I don’t cry over spilt milk, I never have. I don’t moan, I move on. Everyone’s plan is to take it out of the judges’ hands, I am just going to go in and put on a great fight.
“I love Manchester – Manchester always comes out. I’m bringing the pain; it’s going to be sick. I just want to give the fans what they want and they want to see war. Joseph is going to try to ride the storm early and come on in the second half, but there is nowhere to hide.”
