By Charles Brun: Demetrius Andrade will fight Zach Parker on May 21st for the WBO interim super-middleweight belt at the Pride Park Stadium, in Derby, UK.
Demetrius has the opportunity to beat the 27-year-old Parker in his hometown in front of his fans, which will be screaming like mad cheering him on.
If you’re Andrade, it would be a good idea to make sure you score a knockout in this one because winning a decision could prove difficult.
This will be a good opportunity for Andrade to test whether Parker is as good as some of his boxing fans believe him to be. Parker has power, but he’s never fought anyone world-class during his career. Instead of fighting talented fighters, Parker has been these domestic-level fighters:
- Sherzod Khusanov
- Marcus Morrison
- Vaughn Alexander
- Rohan Murdock
- Steven Crambert
Tired of waiting for big fights at 160 that have never materialized, the 34-year-old Andrade (31-0, 19 KOs) is going up to 168 in hoping to get a fight against Canelo Alvarez. Good luck.
Whether Demetrius can get a fight against Canelo remains to be seen, but at least he can put himself in a position to face David Benavidez, Caleb Plant, or Danny Jacobs.
Andrade winning the WBO interim super-middleweight title doesn’t guarantee that he’ll get a fight against the finicky Canelo, because he still won’t be the mandatory challenger.
Canelo won’t have to face him. Even if Andrade does become mandatory the Mexican star, he may choose to ignore him or better yet, vacate. We’ve seen Alvarez do that before to avoid a mandatory.
I guess that’s better than staying at 160 and facing the obscure British fighters that his promoter Eddie Hearn has been matching him against.
“Andrade is top-drawer and we know this, but he is moving up a weight to super middle, which is natural territory for Zach and he is a monster at the weight,” said Promoter Frank Warren.
“Other British and Irish fighters have struggled to fathom out Andrade, but Zach is the complete package. Not only does he carry a huge punch, but he is also tall and technical with an excellent boxing brain.”
Thinking that the pastures would be greener at middleweight, Andrade moved up to the weight class in 2018, beating Walter Kautondokwa to win the vacant WBO title. This was after Billy Joe Saunders vacated the title.
It’s fair to say that if Saunders had held onto the WBO belt and defended it against Andrade, he would have lost badly and never gotten the big payday fight against Canelo Alvarez in 2021.
Andrade defended his WBO middleweight title successfully against this lackluster bunch of contenders:
- Artur Akavov – UD 12 win
- Liam Williams – UD 12 win
- Jason Quigley – TKO 2
- Luke Keeper – TKO 9
- Maciel Sulecki – UD 12 in
Had Andrade chosen to hold onto his WBO middleweight title, he would have had to defend against Zhanibek Alimkhanuly because the original mandatory, Jaime Munguia wanted no part in challenging him for his title.
