09-01-2017, 05:28 PM
Little furore over Fury as Hughie struggles to pull a home crowd for his Joseph Parker fight
Joseph Parker and Hughie Fury will contest the Kiwi's WBO world heavyweight belt in Manchester at the end of the month.
Hughie Fury is proving a tough sell in his own backyard with tickets sales very slow for his WBO heavyweight boxing world title fight with Joseph Parker.
Parker defends his belt for the second time when he fronts against Fury at Manchester Arena on September 23.
Parker's low profile in Britain – this will be his debut there – always put a question mark about this being a blockbuster fight. But Fury's inability to draw a home crowd has some perplexed.
The Manchester Arena has a capacity of 21,000 for boxing. But Fury's promoters aren't even trying to sell seats to the second tier which holds nearly nine thousand.
A ticket sale map shows that only around half of the remaining 12,000 seats have been sold just three weeks out from the fight.
Any fears of the fight being canned for a second time after Fury failed to front in Auckland in May, eased when his father and trainer Peter confirmed fight purse payments had been made to Parker and his backers at Duco Events.
They amount to more than $2 million and ensure the fight will proceed, ending a frustrating and tense time for Duco.
This comes at a time when Britain boasts about becoming the headquarters of the heavyweight division and this fight has a genuine world title on offer.
A boxing forum on the ticket situation had several blaming Fury's inactivity and poor profile with this being the first time he has fought in Manchester in his professional career.
Fury hasn't fought a genuine bout since April last year and his inactivity has cost him his WBO Inter-Continental title.
His ability to gain and then maintain the WBO mandatory has been perplexing.
While he is No 1 with the WBO, he has dropped off the independent rankings at Boxrec.
Parker sits at No 7 on a BoxRec heavyweight list headed by Britain's Anthony Joshua..
- Stuff
Joseph Parker and Hughie Fury will contest the Kiwi's WBO world heavyweight belt in Manchester at the end of the month.
Hughie Fury is proving a tough sell in his own backyard with tickets sales very slow for his WBO heavyweight boxing world title fight with Joseph Parker.
Parker defends his belt for the second time when he fronts against Fury at Manchester Arena on September 23.
Parker's low profile in Britain – this will be his debut there – always put a question mark about this being a blockbuster fight. But Fury's inability to draw a home crowd has some perplexed.
The Manchester Arena has a capacity of 21,000 for boxing. But Fury's promoters aren't even trying to sell seats to the second tier which holds nearly nine thousand.
A ticket sale map shows that only around half of the remaining 12,000 seats have been sold just three weeks out from the fight.
Any fears of the fight being canned for a second time after Fury failed to front in Auckland in May, eased when his father and trainer Peter confirmed fight purse payments had been made to Parker and his backers at Duco Events.
They amount to more than $2 million and ensure the fight will proceed, ending a frustrating and tense time for Duco.
This comes at a time when Britain boasts about becoming the headquarters of the heavyweight division and this fight has a genuine world title on offer.
A boxing forum on the ticket situation had several blaming Fury's inactivity and poor profile with this being the first time he has fought in Manchester in his professional career.
Fury hasn't fought a genuine bout since April last year and his inactivity has cost him his WBO Inter-Continental title.
His ability to gain and then maintain the WBO mandatory has been perplexing.
While he is No 1 with the WBO, he has dropped off the independent rankings at Boxrec.
Parker sits at No 7 on a BoxRec heavyweight list headed by Britain's Anthony Joshua..
- Stuff