In a prima donna move, Derek Chisora is threatening to pull out of Saturday’s fight with Joseph Parker if he isn’t allowed to walk out second as the A-side for their fight at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England.
There was a coin toss during Friday’s weigh-in to decide which of the two heavyweights would walk out second, and Chisora lost the flip. He actually didn’t take part, as he assumed that he would be the guy that would walk out second.
Chisora’s manager David Haye is flabbergasted about his decision to potentially pull out of the fight. Haye points that Chisora will be sued if he fails to follow through with the fight, and he’ll lose a lot of money.
Chisora’s team is already packing stuff up getting ready to leave the bubble. Once Chisora leaves the bubble, the fight will be off because he can’t go back in, Haye says.
“I genuinely can’t see the fight happening, if Derek is told to come first,” Haye said to Sky Sports.
“I know it makes zero sense. He agreed it, he signed the contract,” Haye continued.
“He’s just that guy, he doesn’t care, and unfortunately that’s just the way it is.”
It’s difficult to imagine that Chisora will walk out of the fight and blow a huge payday that he’ll be getting. A move like this could cause a ripple effect on Chisora’s case, leading to a loss of confidence in him.
If Chisora is willing to pull out of a fight for something as simple as a ring-walk, how do you have trust in him in the future? You can’t.
Other than Chisora’s drama, he looked in excellent shape, weighing in at 250 1/2 lbs on Friday, which is 5 lbs lighter than he weighed for his last fight against Oleksandr Usyk last October.
Parker came in at 241.1 lbs and looked in great shape as always. The conditioning has never been an issue with Parker.
His problems have been more as a result of him not being aggressive enough to beat the better heavyweights, which is why he added Andy Lee to his team as a new trainer. Lee has the old-school Kronk Gym background, and he’ll be looking to make Parker meaner.
“It’s just more drama,” said Parker to Sky Sports in reacting to Chisora making a big deal about the ring-walk.
“We’ve had no problems with weight. I want to knock him out. I’ll certainly beat him, but I want to knock him out. That’s what I want to do,” said Parker.
Other weights on Saturday’s card:
Katie Taylor – 134½lbs vs. Natasha Jonas – 134.4lbs
Dmitry Bivol – 174.1lbs vs/ Craig Richards – 174.4lbs
WBA light heavyweight champion Bivol (17-0, 11 KOs) is making a voluntary defense against Richards (16-1-1, 9 KOs) in a fight that figures to be one-sided.
Bivol hasn’t fought since 2019, and he needs to get active again to sharpen up to potentially take on the winner of the Artur Beterbiev vs. Joe Smith Jr unification clash.
Earlier this week, Bivol said he would be willing to drop down to 168 to fight Canelo Alvarez. That would be a big fight for the boxing world, and clearly bigger than Canelo’s planned matches against Billy Joe Saunders and Caleb Plant. Bivol would likely be the favorite against Canelo.
