NEW YORK — Jarrell Miller has broken his silence after the collapse of his planned bout with Michael Hunter, saying it was issues with Hunter and not himself that led to the fight’s cancellation.
The fight was planned for September 11 at the Fontainebleu in Las Vegas, ahead of the September 13 super-fight between Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Terence Crawford in the same city. Miller tells BoxingScene that he believes it was Hunter’s contractual obligations to Don King, who won a purse bid for a WBA secondary heavyweight title fight between Michael Hunter and Kubrat Pulev, that was the reason for the contest being canned.
“We got the letter, it was the 19th I believe. And it says that due to legal situations that they don’t want to go forward with the fight. Basically the Don King situation. Now he's trying to say it’s because of VADA [Voluntary Anti-Doping Agency]. Listen, at this point, I might just start doing what the white folks do and start suing people for defamation of character because that's nowhere near the case,” said Miller, 26-1-2 (22 KOs).
Earlier in the month, Don King announced that he had a cease and desist order to the fight’s organizers, SELA and TKO Boxing, to prevent the Hunter-Miller fight from taking place. The fight was officially taken off the schedule on Thursday, when Miller posted an email he had received from California-based promoter Steven Bash, whom the heavyweight identified as someone aligned with the promotion. It cited "various unresolved legal and regulatory issues surrounding this proffered bout” for its cancellation. Hunter, 24-1-2 (17 KOs), took to social media to claim that it was Miller, and not King, who was to blame for the fight not happening. In an interview with DAZN’s Chris Mannix, Hunter said, “We’ve been told by several different guys, the attorneys and promoters over there that Big Baby had much bigger problems than Don King,” adding that “we’ve already handled the Don King situation.”
Miller has taken offense to Hunter’s handling of the fallout, saying that they had known each other for 15 years. He also states that drug testing wasn’t an issue.
“I’m in great talks with [VADA Chair] Dr. Margaret Goodman, we’re in good talks right now, I’ve been doing everything they’re asking me to do so for him to go on and say that, he's just trying to take away the story from what Don King is doing to him right now on to me, when I never turned down a fight. I never turned down any fight. Look at his last four opponents he fought compared to the last four opponents I fought. I fought three ex-champions, and I took fights on 30 days’ notice against better guys than him. So for him to come out and say that is just blasphemy,” said Miller.
“They wasn’t even paying me enough to fight Michael. I was doing that fight for the fans. I was doing that fight to show [Saudi Arabia boxing financier] Turki Alalshkikh that I’m loyal because he gave me two fights before that but unfortunately there’s certain people in boxing that don’t know boxing and the fight didn’t happen.”
Miller, whose career has stalled more than once due to failed drug tests, says he was accepted into the VADA testing pool on either August 17 or 18. BoxingScene reported on Thursday that an issue with the event was that Miller, who was suspended for failing a pre-fight drug test ahead of a canceled fight with Jerry Forrest in 2020, was required to submit clean drug tests 30, 15, and three days before the fight. Miller says he had been in communication with VADA’s Dr. Goodman, and waiting on securing a therapeutic use exemption for adderall, which he insists is prescribed to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder.
“I have to make sure I do the proper protocol,” said Miller, who hasn’t fought since last August when he drew with Andy Ruiz in an entertaining bout in Los Angeles on a card headlined by Terence Crawford vs. Israil Madrimov
“Communicate with Dr. Goodman, get to my doctor and see why I'm on this and what I'm doing. And that's all it was, a little bit of delay. Me, dealing with her part, and dealing with me, and talking to my doctors. There's no problems there, and a ton of fighters have done it before and are still going through the situation. But it's a process, a process that, if I knew years ago, a lot of stuff would never happen.”
Miller hasn’t let the fight’s cancellation keep him out of the gym. The 37-year-old heavyweight was at the Cops N Kids Gym in Brooklyn on Saturday morning, sparring several rounds with unbeaten heavyweight prospect Pryce Taylor, among others. He says he is already in discussions with his team about getting back in the ring before the end of the year. He says that, if he had his wish, the two fighters he’d like to get in the ring with are Anthony Joshua, whom he was scheduled to face for the unified heavyweight title in 2019 before the fight was nixed due to Miller failing pre-fight drug tests, and former WBC titleholder Deontay Wilder.
Miller says he and Wilder had previously been close friends, even turning to the former WBC heavyweight champion for advice on relationship issues, but says their friendship deteriorated due to “he said she said bullshit” involving Wilder and his former partner.
“I've always had love for Deontay, but like I said, I still want to punch you in the face because you're a champion. So based on that, that's the reason why we got beef, because I looked at you as somebody looked up to in the division, but you, in my brain, you kind of like fell off of that championship pedestal because you following a bird,” said Miller.
“It’s so funny now with the AJ situation, people say, ‘Yo, I hate AJ.’ No, I don't hate him. I kinda dislike him. I don't hate him. He's in a position so I'm gonna knock his head off. A missed opportunity. I still want to knock his head off. People are trying to say that Big Baby is doing this and that. I'm an entertainer, bro. I want to sell fights. I want to have entertaining fights. I want to do fun things together.”
