By Scott Gilfoid: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum says 65-35 is a fair split of the money for the unification fight between WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker and IBF/WBA champion Anthony Joshua. The 86-year-old Arum feels that the 65-35 split, which Team Parker is asking for, is perfectly reasonable for a unification fight against a champion with 2 titles in Joshua.
Arum doesn’t see why Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn doesn’t agree to the deal, because it’s a reasonable offer for Parker to be asking for that amount of money for the fight. Joshua’s promoter, the clever Eddie Hearn, is absolutely not interested in giving Parker a 65/35 deal.
Hearn has rejected that offer. He’s looking for something closer to 70-30, which isn’t too far from what Parker and his promoter David Higgins. Still, if the fight fails to get made, it would be a negative for boxing. Arum feels that the Joshua-Parker fight needs to get made for the sake of the sport of boxing.
“I’ve been in this sport for decades and I can tell you that in a unification fight like this that split is more than fair,” said Arum said via Fight News. “Joshua has two belts and Parker has one – so 65-35 is about right. I can’t see why Eddie Hearn doesn’t see it as reasonable.”
So, there it is. The highly experienced and wise Bob Arum believes that 65/35 is a fair deal for the Joshua vs. Parker fight. Yeah, some would point out that Arum is Parker’s co-promoter, but this is a deal that he would very likely feel is a fair one even if he wasn’t the connected to the New Zealand fighter. Parker is unbeaten, and he does the WBO heavyweight title in his possession.
Parker isn’t just a contender or Joshua’s mandatory challenger. As a mandatory challenger to Joshua, Parker would be entitled to a 30 percent cut of the loot. Since Parker is a champion, he clearly rates a better deal than a mere mandatory challenger. Parker brings a title with him to the fight. A mandatory is little more than a belt-less contender that the sanctioning bodies have ordered a champion to defend against.
”It will be a massive, massive fight,” said Arum. ”This fight needs to happen for the good of boxing.”
If the Joshua-Parker fight doesn’t get made, then Parker’s promoter David Higgins will likely setup a title defense against former WBA champion Lucas “Big Daddy” Browne. That’s a fight that would attract a lot of attention in Parker’s home country of New Zealand. There’s some good money to be made for Parker in fighting Browne.
Hearn will still need to try and negotiate a fight with Parker in the future if he doesn’t get the unification fight made this time. It’s more than likely that Joshua will wind up giving Parker a bigger cut of the pie if he waits longer for him to get more popular. If the fight doesn’t take place until 2019, it wouldn’t be surprising if Parker is able to get a 60-40 or 55-45 split of the revenue for a fight with Joshua. Hearn needs to look at the growth potential for Parker, and realize the guy is young and likely going to be holding onto his WBO title for a long time.