Andrade-Parker: WBO Forced To Delay Purse Bid Due To Damage Caused By Hurricane Fiona

A natural disaster is now the latest entry on the list of circumstances to prevent a Demetrius Andrade stock offer from going forward.

The WBO has called for a seven-day delay in bidding procedures to determine promotional rights for a sanctioned interim super middleweight title fight between Providence’s Andrade and England’s Zach Parker. The session was due to take place Tuesday at the WBO headquarters in San Juan, Puerto Rico, but had to be rescheduled due to the lingering effects of Hurricane Fiona, which caused flooding and power outages across the island.

The new date for the exchange bidding will be Tuesday, September 27, assuming that the OMB offices and surrounding areas are fully operational by that time. The minimum accepted offer is $300,000, in case the session does not experience any further delays.

Andrade (31-0, 19KOs) has been out of the ring since last November. The now former two-division champion has spent all of 2022 weathering delays in prize money offers and also recovering from shoulder surgery that delayed his only scheduled fight this year. He was due to face Parker (22-0, 16KOs) on May 21 in Parker’s hometown of Derby, England, only to suffer an injury that ultimately canceled the event.

Queensberry Promotions previously secured the fight with an offer of $1,834,050 during an auction hearing on February 25, beating out Matchroom Boxing ($1,750,000) who still had ties to Andrade at the time. The fight was approved by the WBO in lieu of Andrade defending his middleweight title against mandatory challenger Janibek Alimkhanuly.

Interestingly, both interim title fights were scheduled for May 21 on two separate continents. Alimkhanuly (12-0, 8KOs) pressed on with his fight, outpointing Danny Dignum in two rounds to win the interim middleweight belt on an ESPN show in Las Vegas. Andrade recovered and pulled out of the fight with Parker after suffering a shoulder injury earlier in the month. The 34-year-old southpaw was then instructed to review plans for a WBO middleweight title-consolidation clash with interim champion Janibek Alimkahanuly (12-0, 8KOs), a mandatory title defense for which he sought an exception to face Parker.

Andrade, who has since parted ways with Matchroom, was ordered to secure the fight with Alimkhanuly in November to avoid being stripped. When it became clear a deal would not be reached, the WBO called a purse offer hearing which was called off when Andrade relinquished his WBO middleweight title to campaign at super middleweight.

The cancellation of the Andrade-Alimkhanuly auction at least put an immediate end to the process. The previously ordered title fight saw three separate bag offer postponements, two due to extensions granted and once due to the WBO temporarily closing its office due to a staff member testing positive for Covid.

The road to securing a fight with Parker (22-0, 16KOs) has been just as rocky.

Andrade and Matchroom initially submitted the proposal to the WBO shortly after the sanctioning body ordered Andrade-Alimkhanuly last November 30. The sanctioner was willing to consider the interim super middleweight title fight from his full title claimant, the undisputed WBA/WBC/IBF/WBO champion. Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez (57-2-2, 39KOs) was scouting fights outside of weight for his yet-to-be-announced next fight.

Too much time had elapsed, prompting the WBO to call a bid hearing to determine the promotional rights for the ordered middleweight title fight. The session was delayed several times, long enough for Andrade-Parker to get back into play. The concessions made by Andrade were enough to convince the WBO to bless the interim super middleweight title fight, in addition to ordering a similar fight at middleweight.

Parker has held the number one spot in the WBO super middleweight rankings since November 2020, only after Alvarez committed to fighting Callum Smith for the WBA “Super” title and the vacant WBC title. Alvarez was allowed to jump the line as the WBO Super champion, even though Parker had previously won a sanctioned title eliminator in a March 2020 eleventh-round knockout of Rohan Murdock.

Since then, Parker has won three fights, including a fourth-round knockout of Marcus Morrison on November 6 in Birmingham, England. The victory came less than two weeks before Andrade’s fifth and most recent WBO middleweight title defense, a second-round knockout of Ireland’s Jason Quigley on Nov. 19 in Manchester, New Hampshire. The 27-year-old Briton will now have a regional advantage for the biggest fight of his career to date, thanks to his promoter stepping in when he mattered most.

Andrade made six successful defenses of the WBO middleweight title he claimed in October 2018 in a vacant title fight over Walter Kautondokwa. The run followed two separate junior middleweight title reigns, both beginning with victories in fights for the vacant title. The 2008 US Olympian and former two-division champion has yet to meet and beat a current or former major champion in 14 years as a pro.

Hurricane Fiona is the first of the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season, having risen to a Category 3 as it continues to travel across the Caribbean. It hit Puerto Rico on September 18, with its massive rains causing flash flooding and major power outages across the island.

The disaster comes on the fifth anniversary of the horrific damage caused by the much more destructive Hurricane Maria, although the latest round was enough for the US president and local response efforts due to the resulting emergency conditions. of [Hurricane] Fiona.

Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox