Joseph Parker withdraws from October 26th Dereck Chisora fight with illness

Dereck Chisora now has even less of an argument for being the main event in London on October 26th. His opponent, former champion Joseph Parker, has withdrawn from their fight due to illness. He and his team believe the cause to be a spider bite, though he’s currently “undergoing testing” to get a clear diagnosis.

Chisora (31-9, 22 KO) will presumably remain on the DAZN card against a late-notice replacement.

Matchroom does boast a fairly deep heavyweight stable, so scrounging up a decent opponent on three weeks’ notice isn’t totally out of the question. I wouldn’t bank on it, though; Chisora’s still dangerous enough to make it a dicey proposition and he’s no stranger to smashing cannon fodder.

This was easily the most interesting fight on the card outside of the Regis Prograis-Josh Taylor main event. For now, we’ll have to do with Lee Selby-Ricky Burns, Yves Ngabu-Lawrence Okolie, and James Tennyson-Craig Evans. Which are, admittedly, some solid scraps, just not ones with the potential for sheer insanity that heavyweight fights and Chisora in particular can offer.