Opinion: Something's not right with the Joseph Parker fight

Dean Lonergan and David Higgins (Photosport)
Dean Lonergan and David Higgins (Photosport)

Something's not right here.

Joseph Parker's got his shot at a world title. His promoters have a chance - a big chance - to stage it in New Zealand. He's one of the hottest prospects in New Zealand, but everyone's gone cold. The public's gone cold. Duco's gone cold. ATEED's gone cold.

Why? It doesn't make sense. Something stinks.

Auckland Council has previously been more than happy to be associated with Duco. Phil Goff was in the ring - IN THE RING!!! - at Parker's last fight, and I've seen Brett O'Riley from ATEED at plenty of Parker press conferences.

Opinion: Something's not right with the Joseph Parker fight

Keen to be part of the build-up, now they want no part in the main event. You can't help but wonder, why? If my ratepayer money was good then, but not now, I want a good reason why. If not, I want my money back!

Mr O'Riley was quoted saying: "We are unable to make a robust assessment of the potential of this event until the fight is confirmed to take place here and domestic and international television rights are secured."

OK, so can you not make some kind of 'conditional' offer of support? Was this the way it worked for previous fights ATEED supported? I'd find that hard to believe. It's not a case of "we can't guarantee financial sponsorship", but a firm "no".

It feels like there's something we're not being told.

Likewise, Duco is known as one of the most open and easy to deal with organisations in sport. Dean Lonergan, David Higgins and all at the company always answer calls, and are almost always available. Now that's all changed. A couple of statements aside, they've shut down. Why?

Opinion: Something's not right with the Joseph Parker fight

Maybe it's the sudden drop in support that's plunged the hosting of this fight into doubt? Maybe it's been the public backlash? Could they have done something to avoid that?

Duco initially applied for taxpayer dollars to fund this fight - why? We can only assume costs are higher to host and stage an event of this magnitude, but how much higher? How much more expensive is the hosting of this fight compared to previous bouts?

Sure, Duco's withdrawn their application for funding, but an explanation to help provide some understanding about what's different about this fight compared to others might have helped quell the strong negative reaction. But if we were going to find out, I suspect we'd know by now. The damage is done.

If - and it's certainly a big if - this fight goes ahead down under and Parker wins, expect it to be his last in New Zealand. We've heard his promoters say that before, but given what's happened over the last couple of weeks, I'm struggling to think of a reason why they'd want to go through all of this again.

(All images courtesy of Photosport)

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