Wilder Edges Chisora in Split Decision Epic at London O2

The O2 Arena has hosted some memorable nights of heavyweight boxing over the years, and it added another to the collection, though memorable is not always synonymous with graceful. Deontay Wilder edged Derek Chisora in a split decision that was as contentious as it was entertaining, the judges returning scores of 115-111 and 115-113 for the American, with a dissenting 112-115 in Chisora's favour. Twelve rounds of brawling, three knockdowns, a point deduction, borderline officiating, a cornerman who entered the ring in the first round and two men who refused to yield when common sense suggested they should: it was, depending on your sensibilities, either a glorious shambles or a shameful glory. The sold-out arena never stopped roaring throughout, which perhaps settled the debate.

The occasion was billed as a milestone, and by the numbers at least it delivered on that billing. This was the fiftieth professional fight for both men, representing the one hundredth combined ring appearance of two heavyweights who first turned professional in consecutive years at the tail end of the first decade of this century. Chisora, the 42-year-old south Londoner who has fought virtually everyone worth fighting in the division across nearly two decades, had declared beforehand that this would be the last night of his career. Wilder, the former WBC heavyweight champion from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, who is 40 years old and has won just two of his past seven professional contests, arrived at the O2 with questions to answer and credibility to restore. It is a measure of what the two men produced across those twelve extraordinary rounds that, by the final bell, neither question nor credibility seemed quite as relevant as the spectacle itself.

Chisora entered the arena in the manner that London has come to know well, his face masked by the Union Flag as he made his way through an arena that received him with the warmth reserved only for cult figures. Hotel California announced him, as it always does. The roar was the O2 at its most emotionally engaged. Chisora weighed in at 266.7 pounds for this contest, the heaviest of his career and some 40 pounds more than Wilder's 226.4. The weight advantage was always going to be a factor. It turned out to be the central tactical reality of the opening rounds.

Wilder won those early exchanges by keeping range, using his jab with more discipline than he has shown in recent outings and timing Chisora on the way in with the straight right hand that remains the most dangerous weapon in his possession, even if its explosive finality has been somewhat muted in the aftermath of the shoulder surgeries that have dogged the later stages of his career. Chisora pressed forward as he always does, closing the distance and using his considerable mass to bully Wilder onto the back foot and make the exchanges rough and uncomfortable. When the two men collided at close quarters, the clinch work was constant, referee Mark Bates spending as much time attempting to separate them as he did anything else. The first bizarre incident arrived in the opening round itself, when one of Chisora's corner men entered the ring during a wrestling match. It was a sign of things to come.

The middle rounds produced the fight's most dramatic moments. Chisora, taking Wilder's jab and right hand while seeking the range to land his own heavy artillery, found a massive overhand right that wobbled the American and had the O2 shaking with its collective reaction. Wilder composed himself and worked the uppercut into his attack in the seventh, landing it cleanly enough to suggest that the second half of the fight might yet see him pull clear.

The eighth round was the signature passage of the entire contest. Wilder hurt Chisora with a left hand, backed him into a corner with a sustained barrage of rights that sent him onto the canvas. Chisora, displaying the extraordinary resilience that has defined his career, beat the count, but Wilder continued forward and pushed him through the ropes. Mark Bates, the referee, ruled a second knockdown but then deducted a point from Wilder for the push, making it a round of considerable complexity for the scorers to interpret. Chisora, who had every reason to fold at that point, refused to do so with commendable obstinacy. He came back with a right hand, then a left hook, then a combination that wobbled Wilder in return before the bell arrived. It was the kind of round that boxing's detractors point to as evidence of the sport's unsuitability for civilised company, and that its devotees treasure for precisely the same reason.

The championship rounds were attritional, in a way that only fights between ageing warriors running entirely on pride and accumulated stubbornness can be. Chisora was told, it was reported, that he was two points adrift entering the eleventh. His response was to keep walking forward, because that is what Derek Chisora does. The eleventh round produced its own share of chaos. A counter right hand from Wilder backed Chisora into the ropes, and he slipped through them, which Bates ruled as a knockdown. And then, almost immediately after the action restarted, Chisora landed a looping right hand of his own that sent Wilder wobbling to the canvas for a knockdown of his own. It was surreal, breathless, and left those at ringside genuinely uncertain about the condition of the scorecards and the identity of the likely winner.

The twelfth and final round was, given what had preceded it, appropriately dramatic. Wilder controlled the early portion, landing the uppercut and keeping Chisora at range. Chisora mounted a final, exhausted but determined charge in the closing stages, throwing everything remaining in the tank. When the final bell sounded, the O2 rose to both men because both men had earned it. The decision, when it came, was met with the noise that attends all such verdicts at a partisan British venue. One judge's card of 112-115 for Chisora suggested the evening could quite reasonably have gone the other way.

Wilder's post-fight remarks were striking in their candour. He said he had deliberately restrained himself in the latter rounds after noticing Chisora's temple beginning to swell, that he had told Chisora in the ring he needed to live for his children, that in a sport where lives have been lost too often, those still inside it must look after each other. It was a moment that transcended the scorecard controversy and reminded the O2 of something more fundamental than split decisions. Chisora, speaking to DAZN with his young daughter alongside him in the ring, was characteristically philosophical about the outcome, pointing to the rope incidents as the difference and acknowledging that many at ringside believed he had done enough to win. Whether this truly was his last professional appearance remained unconfirmed. He spoke of going home to do the school run, which in the circumstances felt like the most Derek Chisora possible response to the question.

It was only the second time in a career of 45 wins and four defeats that Wilder has won by decision, a statistic that speaks volumes about the kind of fighter he has always been. The questions about whether his right hand carries the same finality that made him the most feared puncher in world heavyweight boxing for the better part of a decade remained unanswered. He wobbled Chisora on multiple occasions but never came remotely close to stopping him. Against a younger, sharper, bigger-punching heavyweight, that would be a significant concern. For now, it was enough.