Frank Warren Opens Up On Criticism Over Fury-Whyte Undercard: ‘We Only Have a Certain Amount of Money To Play With’
Frank Warren has opened up on the criticism he has faced for the Tyson Fury vs. Dillian Whyte undercard.
On April 23, Fury is set to face Whyte at Wembley Stadium in London in a highly-anticipated bout but the undercard has left many disappointed. The seven-fight undercard features Anthony Cacace in a super-featherweight bout against Jonathan Romero for a secondary WBO belt; Isaac Lowe in a featherweight bout against Nick Ball, also for a secondary title (WBC); and Tommy Fury in a light heavyweight contest with Daniel Bocianski.
According to Warren, although the undercard doesn’t have a ton of name value, he says they are all competitive fights which will be good for the fans. Along with that, Anthony Yarde was set to be part of the event but he ended up deciding to wait for the title fight instead of a stay busy fight, with that, Warren says they only had so much money they could spend on the undercard.
“Anthony Yarde was supposed to fight on there,” Warren told IFL TV (via BoxingScene). “Unfortunately that didn’t work out. Bob Arum’s heavyweight, Jared [Anderson], was supposed to be on there, but he got injured. We’ve put all our money into the main event, but we’ve got a good fighting undercard. There’s a couple of good cracking fights on there. It is what it is. Obviously, it’s a disappointment. We want to deliver every time but at the end of the day we are constricted by the fact that we bid 41 million dollars for the fight. If we bid 32 million, as Matchroom did, we’d have more money to play with.”
Although many are only interested in the main event, Frank Warren also says the event was nearly sold out just by the main event. He also says they are putting together some competitive fights which is better than bigger names.
“We bid a lot of money for the main fight,” Warren said. “People bought tickets for that main fight without us even announcing an undercard. The main event’s what it’s all about. We lost Anthony and we lost Anderson. We’re obviously very unhappy about it, but we did the best we could with the fighters that are available to fight at the moment. We put something together, and they are decent fights. They are good fights. There’s nothing wrong with them. We are not selling this fight based upon anything else other than this main fight. The rest of it is what it is. It’s an undercard. I don’t want to sell anybody short, but again, we only have a certain amount of money to play with.”
What do you make of the Fury-Whyte undercard?
