A war of words has erupted between the respective promoters for WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker and mandatory challenger Hughie Fury.
Earlier this year, Duco Events - who promote Parker - won the WBO's purse bid by placing down a winning bid of $3,000,011. They outbid Fury's promoter, Frank Warren, who put down $2.8 million. There was a 60/40 split advantage in favor of Parker - who would have made around $1.8 million and Fury would have brought in around $1.2 million.
The fight was scheduled to take place this past Saturday night in Auckland, New Zealand. But two weeks ago, Fury withdrew from the fight with a back injury. Duco brought in a late replacement, Razvan Cojanu, who lost a twelve round decision to Parker.
Warren took some heavy verbal shots at Duco, stating that their company had no idea what they were doing.
Ironically, Warren's comments come at a time when Duco is going through an internal split between the co-owners.
"They are a nightmare, they are a nightmare. They are a bunch of amateurs," Warren told iFLTV. "Duco, they are a total ... all this information they keep putting out to everybody that we are difficult to work with ... they won a purse bid. They came over here, they tried to get us to put the fight on over here ... obviously the bid a lot of money for it and it wasn't going to financially work out for them.
"They are gutted, they don't want to fight Hughie Fury, they have moved heaven and earth not to fight Hughie. But they have got to fight him. Hughie Fury is the mandatory. There will be no other fights in between. They will fight Hughie Fury. That is the bottom line of it. What I want is to get this fight on asap, so does Peter Fury. We want to get it on and get that title. Hughie can get that title. We want to get this out of the way this week and get on with it."
Promoter David Higgins of Duco fired back with some verbal jabs of his own.
The Parker-Fury will have to happen, as the WBO ordered both sides to reach a deal in 30 days or a new purse bid will be ordered. Fury's handlers provided medical proof of his injury and the sanctioning body kept him in place as the mandatory.
"Warren wouldn't even confirm that Parker-Fury would be the main event, what month it would be in. He was shifty as hell and wouldn't agree to terms," Higgins said to Fairfax Media.
"So we went to purse bid and won it and he looked like an amateur. He loses the purse bid to a company from New Zealand ... he got embarrassed, egg on the face. It appears they made up a questionable injury and now we are back to square one. We don't think Hughie is a bad fight. He's beatable and we are not at all worried about him. We will go to England if the terms are right. So it's back to square one.
"If Warren agrees to the terms that we think are right and fair, it's on. But if he pisses around again, damn right there will be a purse bid and we will probably win it again and we will be forcing him down here or Samoa or wherever we want ... I could run a Duco show in Manchester."