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Frank Warren has claimed the rescheduled Demetrius Andrade-Zach Parker interim title fight and at a hefty discount.
Hall of Fame promoter Queensberry Promotions claimed the promotional rights to the WBO interim super middleweight title fight, submitting $305,000 as the sole bidder during the purse offer hearing held Thursday via Zoom. Andy Ayling of Queensberry has informed the WBO of the company’s plans to stage the fight on November 5 in London, Nottingham or Parker’s hometown of Derby, England.
The offer barely exceeded the $300,000 minimum required by the OMB. Under the auction rules, a deposit of twenty percent of the winning amount ($61,000) must be submitted to the San Juan-based sanctioning agency within two business days. Purse offer terms require Andrade to win
Whether Andrade (31-0, 19KOs) still continues the fight remains to be seen, as he is due to earn less than 17 percent of the payday that would have come from his originally scheduled May 21 date in Derby.
Queensberry won the rights to the fight earlier this year, submitting a bid of $1,834,050 to beat out Matchroom Boxing, Andrade’s promoter at the time, who offered $1,750,000. Andrade was owed 65 percent of the winning bid ($1,192,132.50) but he was forced to pull out of the fight after sustaining a shoulder injury that sidelined him for approximately four months.
The terms of the rescheduled auction required a 60/40 split in favor of Andrade “if the fight takes place in the country of origin, residence or nationality of one of the contestants,” according to Section 13 (2) (b ) of OMB Rules. It still only leaves Andrade with a payday of just $183,000, though it’s not uncommon for a side deal to be struck in such circumstances to further entice the entrants to go ahead with the fight.
The latest bid for the bag came after a two-day delay, with the session originally scheduled for Tuesday postponed due to damage from Hurricane Fiona across the island. Much of Puerto Rico was left without power and water and most areas were flooded as a result of the natural disaster.
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. It’s also a year in which the 34-year-old southpaw from Providence, Rhode Island became a former two-division champion, vacating his WBO middleweight title rather than honor a mandatory defense in a consolidation clash. of the title with Janibek Alimkhanuly.
Andrade-Parker was first approved earlier this year for an interim super middleweight title by the WBO, which also sanctioned an interim middleweight title fight between Alimkhanuly (12-0, 8KOs) and England’s Danny Dignum. Both fights came at the request of Andrade campaigning at super middleweight rather than take another undesirable fight at middleweight where he woefully failed to secure the coveted unification bouts.
Alimkhanuly-Dignum was the only fight of the two interim title fights to see the light of day. Alimkhanuly won via second-round knockout, along with the guarantee of receiving a shot at Andrade in November or being promoted to full champion by default.
The latter came after Andrade decided earlier this summer that he was done with the middleweight division, vacating his title just as a rescheduled Andrade-Alimkhanuly auction hearing was to take place. At least it 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 2020, having 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.
That status will not change on November 5, regardless of whether he continues with the fight.
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox
