Were you disappointed with Joseph Parker's recent performance? Are you confident the unification with Wilder will come to fruition? Bob Arum: "Well, Parker's got to fight a mandatory first against Hughie Fury. That will take place in the UK in July." Is there no way around that with an exception so the unification can happen first? Bob Arum: "No because economically it's better off to do Fury and then maybe Joshua. Wilder is a nice guy, but he doesn't bring anything to the table. He doesn't bring any money to the table. Not like these English guys do. What do you do with a Wilder fight? You can't put it on PPV so it goes on regular television and it's not going to do a huge gate." Maybe if you and Al Haymon found the right deal the fight could be on a major network like Fox or NBC. Bob Arum: "But there's no gelt there. There's more gelt in England. In other words, if it's unification you're going to have to compensate Wilder and you're going to have to compensate my guy and there's not enough money." GL: Wilder doesn't bring anything to the table. That's interesting. BA: "It's not that he doesn't bring anything to the table. He doesn't bring enough to the table, not for another champion. The Wilder-Joshua fight would be interesting, but only in the UK. It wouldn't be huge in the United States, but in the UK it would do big business."
Which fury is he talking about? If it's Tyson then fair enough but Hughie? Does he really bring that much money to the table for Parker to fly over?
If you had read Arum's first quote in the opening post you wouldn't need to ask which Fury he is referring to.
Parker is signing to fight Hughie "Pull out at the last minute" Fury in July Good luck with that Parker. I hope you have a decent subsitute lined up and on the bench, just on the off chance that Hughie gets another last minute injury. I know its highly unlikely that lightening will strike twice, but just to be safe rather than sorry its good advice. Also put a penalty in the contract if the lying POS pulls out again at the last minute.
Can't happen. Hughie it seems still has no license, and his UKAD drug hearing (jointly with TF) isn't until much later this year. Parkers team may be saying it will happen purely so they cover themselves legally with the WBO, with regards to showing willing to fight their mando, but it can not and it will not.
No, I got accurately corrected earlier today on the general when making the same point about licencing as you made. I checked and he's now listed by the BBBofC as a licenced boxer. Given that he's now listed, I'm not sure how the UKAD proceedings play into his situation. Nevertheless, I'm not buying the July timing. There doesn't appear to be enough time to get all of the logistics sorted and organised. And, while there may be news out there, this interview of Arum is the only thing that I've seen about a Parker/HF July fight.
If the fight happens Hughie will be World Champion as he has more ring IQ in his little finger than Parker has in his whole body.
I'm sorry. What does Parker bring to the table, again? Did I miss something? Is Parker some huge draw? For the first world heavyweight title fight in New Zealand, Parker-Ruiz drew a measly 9,000 people ... in an arena that held 13,000. (And his home crowd thought it was iffy he even beat Ruiz.) And his first defense had to be moved to a smaller venue. Of course Joshua draws more than both. But Parker and his team are in no position to badmouth Wilder. Wilder isn't a big draw compared to Joshua ... no heavyweight is. But Wilder draws more ticket buyers than Parker does. He draws more television viewers than Parker does. Wilder's belt has more value. Wilder is considered a better heavyweight than Parker. And Wilder's a more exciting fighter on top of it. And since when does Bob Arum promote Joseph Parker? Did Parker have to give up promotional rights to Arum to fight Andy Ruiz?
