Frank Warren slams Hearn for making Dillian Whyte vs. Joseph Parker on PPV

Boxingnews24.com

By Scott Gilfoid

Promoter Frank Warren doesn’t think too much of Eddie Hearn deciding on putting the heavyweight clash between Dillian Whyte and Joseph Parker on July 28 on pay-per-view, as he personally doesn’t view the fight as being PPV worthy. Whyte (23-1, 17 KOs) will be facing former World Boxing Organization heavyweight champion Joseph Parker (24-1, 18 KOs) on Sky Box Office on the 28th of July at the O2 Arena in London, England.

The boxing public doesn’t think too much of the fight being put on PPV, as it’s more of a regular television type of match-up. Parker, 26, lost his last fight to IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua by a 12 round unanimous decision on March 31 in Cardiff, Wales, and now he’s getting fight against the 30-year-old Whyte that could put himself in position to take on Joshua in a rematch.

“I wouldn’t pay 99p to watch it! It’s not a pay-per-view fight,” Warren said to TheSportsman.

You can argue it’s a bad business model to force boxing fans to pay to see a non-PPV worthy fight. The idea is to not be greedy and make sure that only the quality fights get put on PPV, but unfortunately sometimes promoters go for the money and ask fans to pay to see fights that are not worthy of pay television.

I totally agree with Mr. Warren. I don’t see the Whyte vs. Parker being worth it for the boxing public having to pay to see these two guys face each other. If Parker had won his last fight against Joshua, and if he were a big star, then it would be somewhat interesting if he were facing someone that fans are interested in seeing like Deontay Wilder or Joshua. Whyte doesn’t have a large fan base.

With the help of Eddie Hearn’s clever match-making, Whyte has won his last seven fights since his 7th round knockout loss to Joshua in 2015. None of Whyte’s fights have come against good fighters. He recently beat an out of shape former WBA World heavyweight champion Lucas ‘Big Daddy’ Browne on March 24. Before that, Whyte beat Robert Helenius, Malcolm Tann, Dereck Chisora, Ian Lewison, David Allen and Ivica Bacurin. Whyte has been pushing for a world title shot against WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder, but Hearn has failed to agree to pay the $7 million asking price for the ‘Bronze Bomber’ to give Dillian a voluntary title shot. Whyte was counting on the World Boxing Council in making him Wilder’s mandatory challenger and then ordering the fight, but the sanctioning body opted not to do that, likely because of the weak opposition that Whyte was padding his record with. When you want to become a mandatory challenger at heavyweight, it’s probably not the smartest idea in the world to fight guys like David Allen, Ivica Bacurin, Malcolm Tann, Robert Helenius and an out of shape 39-year-old Lucas Browne. I’m just saying.

Whyte should have been fighting Luis ‘King Kong’ Ortiz and or Kubrat Pulev. Speaking about Pulev, Whyte recently chose not to fight him in an International Boxing Federation heavyweight title eliminator in Bulgaria. There was a purse bid that was won by Epic Sports, who wanted to stage the Pulev vs. Whyte fight in Bulgaria. But instead of taking that fight to become the IBF mandatory challenger to Joshua, Whyte chose to face Parker in a non-title eliminator. Whyte also had the chance to fight Luis Ortiz in a WBC title eliminator, but he chose not to take that fight either. Some boxing fan think Whyte ducked the fight against Ortiz for fear of being beaten to a pulp, but we’ll never know for sure why he chose not to take the fight with him. All we know is Whyte didn’t fancy the idea of fighting Ortiz.

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