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Andrade pulls out of Charlo fight over money, communication issues

Fighters Network
17
Nov

The father and trainer of WBO junior middleweight beltholder Demetrius Andrade says his son will not go through with a scheduled Dec. 13 title defense against Jermell Charlo, a fight he says was never finalized, due to the amount of money that was offered for the bout that was part of a Showtime tripleheader.

Paul Andrade says he and his son never agreed to fight Charlo and that their promoters had not discussed the bout with them before making it.

“That fight was made without even talking to us,” said Paul Andrade. “I have no objection to the fight but what we have objections to is that they didn’t want to pay us any money to fight.

“I mean, $250,000 for Charlo is ridiculous. That’s what they offered, but we did not ask to make the fight or look to make the fight. We waited until the last minute for them to come back with a better offer but it just didn’t happen.”



Andrade-Charlo was to be part of a card co-headlined by the Amir Khan-Devon Alexander and Keith Thurman-Leonard Bundu welterweight fights. Abner Mares and Victor Ortiz were also recently added to the Golden Boy Promotions card.

Paul Andrade believes his son deserved more respect being the only current major titleholder on the card.

“We’re an undefeated fighter, we’re the only titleholder on that card. I feel like all of the fighters on the card are getting well-compensated for their fights, but everybody else is getting big figures and we’re going to be paid the least.

“It’s not like we said we’re going to fight this guy for this amount of money and then we pulled out of it. We never even saw a contract, and we weren’t going to sign a contract for that little bit of money… We’re not trying to be a Prima Donna where we’re asking for ridiculous money, but I know that we’re worth more than $250,000. We just feel that we should be fairly compensated for the fight.”

Andrade’s co-promoters, Artie Pelullo of Banner Promotions and Joe DeGuardia of Star Boxing, are with Chris Algieri in Macau, China, where Algieri will challenge WBO beltholder Manny Pacquiao on Saturday.

Pelullo partially disputed Paul Andrade’s account, saying that the boxer, through his manager, Ed Farris, was offered an amount higher than $250,000. Showtime offered Andrade $500,000, according to a source familiar with the purse numbers.

“It’s unfortunate that the fight did not happen before the end of this year,” said Pelullo, “but I believe that the fight will happen during either the first or second week of January between Demetrius Andrade and Jermell Charlo, or another top 10 opponent.”

Showtime sports executive Stephen Espinoza could not be reached for an immediate comment but the network issued the following statement late Monday evening:

“Golden Boy Promotions and Showtime have been informed that WBO Junior Middleweight World Champion Demetrius Andrade is unavailable for his scheduled world title defense against Jermell Charlo on Saturday, Dec. 13 on Showtime Championship Boxing at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

“At this time, it is unclear whether Andrade vs. Charlo will be rescheduled for a later date. Discussions are ongoing, and additional details will be announced as soon as they are finalized.

“The Showtime Championship Boxing telecast will be headlined by the welterweight showdown between Amir Khan and Devon Alexander with a co-feature pitting Interim WBA Welterweight World Champion Keith Thurman against undefeated challenger Leonard Bundu.

“Abner Mares and Victor Ortiz are also scheduled to appear on Dec. 13 in separate bouts. Additional details about the live Showtime and Showtime Extreme telecasts will be announced shortly.”

Eric Gomez, matchmaker and vice president of Golden Boy, said he was notified of the issue by Espinoza earlier on Monday.

“Stephen Espinoza notified us earlier today, so we just found out today also, just like everyone else. So it’s news to us. All of that stuff is being worked out. We don’t have Andrade. We heard all of the rumors three weeks back,” said Gomez.

“So Stephen is working on it and Andrade had made a deal directly with Stephen through Pelullo and DeGuardia. We don’t represent Andrade. We were in the dark. We heard the rumors, and we didn’t know what was going on. So today, we got confirmation. Stephen said that if the fight can not be postponed, then we’ll go from there.”

Asked if Mares or Ortiz might be moved onto the televised portion, Gomez reiterated, “not yet.”

“There’s nothing right now. It’s in the works,” said Gomez. “We’re going to see whether the fight gets postponed or whether it gets cancelled altogether, or if we’re going to get another opponent. It’s in the works, right now.”

In his past two bouts, Andrade (21-0, 14 knockouts) defeated previously unbeaten Vanes Martirosyan by split decision for the vacant belt last November and scored a seventh-round stoppage of Brian Rose in his last fight in June. In his previous fight in January 2013, Andrade, 26, unanimously decisioned Freddy Hernandez on Showtime.

The 24-year-old twin brother of fellow 154-pound contender Jermall Charlo, Jermell Charlo (24-0, 11 KOs) won his past two fights by unanimous decisions over Gabriel Rosado in January and Charlie Ota in May.

“We beat an undefeated fighter to win the title when we beat Vanes, and, to be honest, I see Vanes destroying Charlo,” said Paul Andrade. “We’re bigger, faster and stronger than Charlo, he has a low knockout rate, and he doesn’t hurt people, so why would we be scared to fight Charlo?”

Paul Andrade said his son still is interested in facing Charlo at some point if the price is right.

“I am not saying that the fight couldn’t happen in the future, but, personally, if I had had my choice, I would have preferred to have fought Erislandy Lara, who is a bigger name,” he said.

“Again, I just want to apologize to the fans who bought tickets, because they should have been told a couple of weeks ago that we weren’t taking that fight. It was never a done deal. The money was never right for the fight.

“I’m not trying to make anybody look bad, but we never agreed to this. You don’t go putting the cart before the horse. I feel badly about it because people are still calling me up about the fight. I feel bad for the fans and the people, because they really need to know what happened. They should have been notified a couple of weeks ago that the fight wasn’t going to happen.”

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