Task too big -- Anthony Joshua leads with a left against Joseph Parker in their world title boxing fight in Cardiff.
By David Scoullar
A BOXING adage states that a good big man will always beat a good small man.
Joseph Parker isn't small, but Anthony Joshua was taller, heavier, had a longer reach and was fighting in front of his home crowd.
That should have told us something leading to their heavyweight bout last weekend in Cardiff - our man was up against it big time.
This fight had been talked up for months.
We were repeatedly told Joshua had a glass jaw, Parker had the fastest hands in the business and that tepid performances in his previous bouts counted for nothing.
So it was a case of heart over head for most Kiwis. We desperately wanted Parker to win; some people even prayed he would.
We wanted it so badly we dared believe he could overcome the obvious obstacles.
Punters certainly thought so. Of the $1.75 million they bet at the New Zealand TAB, 94 per cent was on Parker to win.
But there's nowhere to hide in a boxing ring and when it came to reality time Parker was simply outclassed. He did his best, fought gamely but came a distant second on the cards of all three judges.
Had we shed the rose-tinted specs we should have seen that coming but, given the intensity of the hype, it was positively unpatriotic not to back Parker.
Sir Bob Jones was one of a handful of Kiwis with a boxing background who was adamant Joshua would win - and for that he probably got a few more signatures on the petition to strip him of his knighthood.
We've been here before. Scroll back to 2000 when David Tua had a crack at heavyweight glory against Lennox Lewis.
Despite Tua's reputation as a heavy puncher, he was dwarfed by Lewis and this turned out to be even more of a mismatch.
The moral is that while we should always support our people, we need to be more hard-headed, particularly around a sport like boxing where outrageous hyperbole and show business dominate over cold, hard facts and common sense.
■David Scoullar is a former Wanganui Chronicle news editor.
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