Ladies, gentlemen, and others: we have reached rock bottom.
Jake Donovan reports that Demetrius Andrade, after seeing his potential curse cut by over 80%, has officially withdrawn from his ordered WBO interim title fight against Zach Parker. Should the WBO keep going down that path, no. 4 John Ryder will get the call instead, though frankly they should just put on their big boy pants and order Canelo to fight Parker after two years as their top contender.
The 34-year-old Andrade (31-0, 19 KO) is now entirely bereft of any leverage whatsoever for a major fight. No hardware, no financial incentives, no rankings; there’s a decent chance he’s single-handedly killed his career. His only shot at a major opportunity is if one of the titlists he’s pissed off offers him decent money to settle the score; Sampson Lewkowicz apparently claimed he’d made an offer to pit him against David Benavidez, but I don’t have access to his earlier Twitter Spaces conversation to confirm.
The funny part is, all of this could have been avoided if he’d just fought Janibek Alimkhanuly. WBO regulations stipulate that a champion moving up in weight automatically becomes the mandatory challenger, so while there were extenuating circumstances here with Parker, he could have just cruised along with his middleweight belt until Parker got his shot and cleared the way for “Boo Boo” to slip into the no. 1 contender spot at 168.
But no, he made his bed and now he has to lie in it.