by David P. Greisman
Some people who travel overseas return with souvenirs. Demetrius Andrade’s promoter believes an upcoming trip to Germany to face Jack Culcay in early November will bring his fighter back not only with a world title, but with something less tangible but nonetheless important.
“He’ll knock him out, and then he’ll come back and be back on Showtime,” said Arthur Pelullo of Banner Boxing. “It’s just a start. Now he comes back to America with the title, and now we have more leverage. He’ll be the two-time junior middleweight world champion. There’s a lot of fights out there on Showtime for him.”
Andrade won the vacant World Boxing Organization belt at 154 pounds in late 2013, edging Vanes Martirosyan, but he only defended it once, dominating and stopping Brian Rose in June 2014. Then came Andrade pulling out of a fight with Jermell Charlo later that year, followed by a dispute with his promoters. He came back in October 2015, making short work of Dario Pucheta, then appeared on Showtime this past June looking very good in putting away Willie Nelson in 12 rounds.
Culcay has the World Boxing Association’s “regular” title. Erislandy Lara is the WBA’s “super” titleholder.
While Andrade is ranked No. 1 by the World Boxing Council in its rankings, he is not the first mandatory challenger to the WBC belt held by Jermell Charlo. That’s why he’s facing Culcay, whom Andrade was the mandatory to, next instead of Charlo.
“The WBC and Don King had a different idea, so we have a different idea,” Pelullo said. “That’s all I’m going to say.”
Don King promotes Charles Hatley, who has been mandated to face Charlo first.
But Pelullo doesn’t think there will be any issues getting big fights in the United States soon for Andrade, particularly after the way Andrade performed against Nelson, taking advantage of his co-feature slot underneath another one of Pelullo’s fighters, Ruslan Provodnikov, who lost to John Molina that night in the main event.
“It’s tremendous for Demetrius, to be the co-feature, and then Demetrius did what he had to do: shine,” Pelullo said. “He didn’t just win. He shined. Now he’s back. He stole the show.”
Showtime has been featuring several other 154-pound fighters, many of them advised by Al Haymon. Pelullo thinks those matches can be made.
“I do my business with Stephen Espinoza. I don’t know Al Haymon outside of ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye,’” Pelullo said. “He’s not against fighting his guys with Demetrius Andrade. He’s got to make fights, too. What’s he going to do with Charlo, not fight Andrade? If he doesn’t fight him, we’ll fight somebody else. At this stage, Al Haymon has not indicated any reason not to fight Andrade through my relationship with Stephen Espinoza. On the contrary, he says he’s willing to.”
Andrade’s options aren’t limited to Haymon’s fighters either (or Don King’s, if Hatley beats Charlo), according to Pelullo.
“There’s also Canelo for him. There’s also Golovkin,” Pelullo said. “There’s a lot of things going on the industry, where guys are going back and forth. That’s all I can say right now. Guys who were Showtime or HBO fighters won’t always be. I think it’s going to be a very interesting next six months to a year.
“We’re on Showtime. That’s where our loyalties are,” he said. “They gave us an opportunity. They gave us a break. They put Ruslan on when HBO had nothing for him, and they put Demetrius on in a co-feature in a fight that made him a star.”
Pick up a copy of David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsamazon or internationally at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsworldwide. Send questions/comments via email at fightingwords1@gmail.com