By Ryan Burton
Matchroom Boxing recently announced that top rated contender Dillian Whyte (23-1) will face Joseph Parker (24-1) on July 28th at the O2 Arena in the United Kingdom.
The announcement caught some people by surprise because a few days prior to the announcement Top Rank chairman Bob Arum said that he was putting together a Bryant Jennings-Parker fight for August 18th in Atlantic City that would have been televised by ESPN.
BoxingScene.com caught recently caught up with Parker's trainer Kevin Barry who said that the offer to fight Whyte on Sky Sports pay-per-view was simply too good to pass up.
"All the rules changed so day by day we liked that fight even less and at the same time Dillian Whyte was positioned very well. #1 with the WBC, #2 by the WBO and #4 by the IBF. His company, Matchroom, had lost the purse bid to fight(Kubrat) Pulev (in an IBF eliminator) and he found himself getting 25% of that purse and having to go off to Bulgaria to fight him so he was starting to like that fight even less," explained Barry.
"With the great business we did with Matchroom and Adam Smith with Sky leading up to the Parker-Joshua fight, we were able to put together this pay-per-view fight with Joseph Parker and Dillian Whyte in 3 days which is an amazing piece of business considering it took us 3 months to put the Joshua fight together."
As for the difference in purse size, Barry said that you really can't compare the two offers.
"Oh God, 10 fold. How many times do you go from fighting in front of 80 thousand people where you are sharing in the revenue and sales of going to 140 countries and you lose your world title and have your first loss and you come back in a pay-per-view fight fighting against a fighter the caliber of Dillian Whyte? We can regain everything except the world title that we lost in one fight. This is a great piece of business for us. Our promoter David Higgins has done an excellent job securing this opportunity," Barry told BoxingScene.com.
Matchroom Boxing recently announced that former welterweight champion Kell Brook will also appear on the card against Brandon Cook and WBA/IBF female lightweight champion Katie Taylor will also fight on the card against Kimberly Connor.
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