Recount rejected, fight options for Parker from Japan, China and Russia

By Deidre Tautua-Fanene 21 October 2017, 12:00AM

Lupesoliai La’auliolemalietoa Joseph Parker and his team are considering whether they will stage another title defense before the end of the year. 

In Samoa last week, Lupesoliai told the Sunday Samoan, his handlers are doing the negotiations but his part is to stay in shape and be prepared.

“We haven’t finalized anything, probably by the end of this week,” he said.

“At the moment we have a lot of options coming from Russia, China, Japan and so forth but hopefully we can lock something in so we can have another defense title.”

When the World Heavyweight Champion was asked who he wants to see in the ring, he said: “I want to fight anyone.”

“I want to fight Anthony Joshua or Deontay Wilder, but it’s hard to make a fight happen when everyone wants money and all those kind of stuff so hopefully soon.”

When asked if there was a possibility of bringing international fight to Samoa, he said: “We are looking at a fight at the end of the year maybe in New Zealand or here in Samoa,” said Lupesoliai.

“However, we are in discussions now with the Prime Minister to see if we can fight here and if we can make that happen since it’s a title defense.”

Speaking about his Manchester fight with Hughie Fury’s and their claim to appeal the decision made by the Judges,Lupesoliai was confident they could not appeal the decision that had already been made.

“I don’t think they can’t appeal the decision,” he said.

“The W.B.O. made up their mind and the judges made up their mind so as much as they want to appeal it, I think the decision has already been made.”

“As for a rematch he has to go through the same structure which means they have to work his way up again.”

“It was hard to chase someone who’s always running away and doesn’t want to fight.”

“He didn’t want to engage in fighting so it’s good to get it out of the way so now we are trying to plan one defense title at the end of the year hopefully in December.”

“However, in the meantime we are looking for fighters who want to fight and want to put up a good show and not run away.”

Lupesoliai said he would go back to England if he was to fight someone else.

“I do want to go back to England but I think if we fight someone else it will be a different lead up to the fight.”

“There are other people who are more professional and better to work with but it was good to get that fight out of the way.”

Yesterday, it was confirmed that the W.B.O. would not rescore the recent world heavyweight title fight despite a written protest and request from the Fury camp. 

The fight took place at the Manchester Arena on September 23 and headlined the first show to take place at the venue since the Manchester bombing that rocked the city in May of this year.

Fury lost by margins of 118-110, twice, and 114-114, on the cards of Marcus McDonnell, Terry O’Connor and Rocky Young respectively, which prompted an angry response from promoter Mick Hennessy, who felt that the 23-year-old had won the contest by virtue of his boxing skills and movement.

New Zealand-based Parker was given the decision by a brace of wide margins and is eyeing pastures new, especially now that the W.B.O. has confirmed that a rescore, and possible subsequent appeal, will not take place.

Initially, there was speculation that their decision to apply the rescoring rule to Manny Pacquiao’s decision loss to Jeff Horn had set a precedent, but the organisation revealed that, unlike the Pacquiao fight, there had not been a request sent in from the complainant’s governing body, in this case the BBBoC.  

Therefore there was no scope for them to look into scoring the fight again.

“[T]he W.B.O. will not conduct a W.B.O. independent judges rescoring of the bout,” stated the W.B.O when replying to the request in writing.  

“In the Pacquiao versus Horn bout the W.B.O. independent judges rescoring was done at the request of the Philippine Commission.”

They then directed Hennessy to Section 18. Return Fights of their regulations, pointing out that only the Executive Committee can rule in favour of an immediate return bout in the case of ‘...a clear misapplication of the rules of boxing resulting in a manifest unfairness’.

This decision, coupled with the lack of a complaint from the Board, leaves Hennessy with no other option other than to appeal again by providing additional supporting information or set his sights on a different title fight route.

Either way, Peter Fury, the father and trainer of Hughie, recently told BoxingScene that the contender will fight again around April time and that they hope to digest the lessons learned from his first world title fight in order to have another run at the world crown.

 

*Additional reporting from Terence Dooley of boxingscene.com

By Deidre Tautua-Fanene 21 October 2017, 12:00AM
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