Parker promoters take aim at Fury’s camp

Joseph Parker’s WBO heavyweight title fight against Hughie Fury is off after the Englishman pulled out claiming injury less than two weeks out from the event in Auckland.

Parker was due to fight Fury in a mandatory defence of his WBO world heavyweight title on May 6 but Stuff revealed doubts about the fight last week.

World Boxing Organisation (WBO) president Paco Valcarel said in a tweet on Sunday the fight was now off and ‘‘the problem lies within the Fury camp’’.

Parker has been mucked around by the Fury camp throughout the build up. The Kiwi champion has been through an extensive training camp and arrived in New Zealand on Saturday ready to step into the ring next week.

Parker’s promoters, Duco Events, fired a shot at the Fury camp for pulling out at such late notice.

‘‘I spoke to the WBO president a minute ago he said the Furys are claiming to have an injury and therefore we can fight whoever we want when we want as a voluntary defence out of the top 15,’’ Duco coowner David Higgins said.

Asked about the nature of Fury’s injury, Higgins said: ‘‘I know exactly what it is; their moral compass has broken in half – a nasty fracture of the moral compass. It’s not just Hughie, the whole camp has.

‘‘That’s boxing. Sometimes this sort of thing goes on. They didn’t appear to want to come to New Zealand.’’

Higgins is yet to speak to anyone from the Fury camp. ‘‘I don’t think I’ll bother.’’ Peter Fury, Hughie’s father and trainer, told World Boxing News website he hoped the fight would go ahead at a later date.

‘‘We will be releasing details of the postponement in an announce- ment shortly,’’ Fury told WBN. ‘‘However, we are looking to put the fight back on in New Zealand as fast as possible.’’

But Higgins ruled out postponement, saying Duco had authorisation to push on with alternative plans.

‘‘The WBO clearly gave us permission to take a voluntary defence and that’s what we are going to do,’’ Higgins said.

‘‘The wranglings of the Furys have cost us a lot of time and money so we’re going to take a voluntary. If the Furys provide a medical certificate that is sound then I’ll apologise for being suspicious, but that doesn’t change that fact it’s been very difficult and we would not be in a hurry to work with them again.’’

A decision is yet to be made about whether Parker will still fight on May 6 but finding an opponent willing to step up on two week’s notice seems unlikely. Higgins also ruled out Parker taking on Australian heavyweight Lucas Brown, who was quick to put his hand up, as he does not sit inside the WBO’s top 15.

‘‘We’ve got to regroup and look at what we do. Obviously we have respect for the paying public so we’ll keep them informed and provide refunds where appropriate but there will be more information tomorrow [Monday].

‘‘The life of a promoter is not easy but it is interesting.’’

The development came just a day after Hughie Fury declared his readiness for the fight in a toughtalking first-person column in Britain’s Mirror newspaper, headlined ‘‘I’m firing on all cylinders, Joseph Parker won’t know what’s hit him’’.

‘‘With just two weeks until I take on Joseph Parker, everything has gone well in training. I know every fighter says that, even when it’s not true, but I’m raring to go,’’ Fury wrote.

‘‘Because of the problems I had with my skin that I talked about in my first column, this is the first time in a long time that I’ve had a proper training camp.

‘‘I feel 100 per cent better than I did for my previous fights. I’m bigger, stronger, and more powerful. In fact, I’m a different fighter and Parker won’t know what’s coming.

‘‘I’ve watched a few of his fights and I’m confident we have the game plan to beat him – but I can’t reveal it here! I’ll fly out to New Zealand with my team in the next few days so that we have plenty of time to get settled.’’

Immediately after Duco won the purse bid to stage the fight and were weighing up their venue options which then included New Zealand, Samoa and Singapore, Fury’s father and trainer Peter Fury said coming to New Zealand would be ‘‘the worst’’.

‘‘At the moment the worst way is going to be New Zealand, we’d like it to be somewhere else,’’ Peter Fury said.

‘‘It all depends where it is going to make the most money I suppose, and that’s not really my end of it.’’