According to Dan Rafael, Top will co-promoted undefeated heavyweight Joseph Parker with Duco Ecents going forward, which includes his WBO title bout this Saturday night with Andy Ruiz in Auckland, New Zealand.
“Listen, having been in this business 50-plus years, I don’t expect anybody to win a fight, particularly when it’s as close on paper as this one is,” Top Rank’s Bob Arum said. “I really think that the winner of this fight probably has the best chance to be the pre-eminent heavyweight, I really believe that.
“Parker has natural skills. He’s so big and he punches so hard, and Andy has the fastest hands that I’ve seen on a heavyweight since Muhammad Ali.”
“But no promoter can make a fighter a star,” Arum said. “A fighter has to make himself a star. A promoter can only help by getting the right fights, getting the right publicity, but the idea that the promoter makes the star, as flattering as that is, is just not the case.
“If Parker does defeat Andy Ruiz then we will, together with Duco, perhaps have Parker fight in the United States, then come back here and then fight in China. Believe me, this [is] just the start.
“We have massive global ambitions for Joseph and for a number of other fighters,” said Duco’s Dean Lonergan, whose company will still control any fights and revenue in New Zealand and Australia. “Just because we come from New Zealand doesn’t mean to say that we can’t do it overseas. In fact, it encourages us to go overseas because our market is so small.”
