Briggs-Oquendo: Promoters Complain Over 1 Million Minimum

[Ruthless-RKO]

Both sides were ordered to negotiate on January 2nd and failed to reach a deal within 30 days.
The purse bid will be held on Monday at the offices of the WBA in Panama City and will be directed by Aurelio Fiengo, who is a WBA board member.

The percentage of the split will be an even 50-50, because the belt is vacant. The winner will have the obligation to defend the title against Russia's Alexander Ustinov, who is ranked third under the WBA.

According to the WBA's official rules, a heavyweight title fight will always have a minimum bid of a million dollars.

Sources with knowledge of the situation have advised BS that several promoters are actually interested in bidding, but feel the minimum bid is extremely high.

There is a real possibility that nobody will show up to bid on this fight. If that happens, the purse bid will be canceled and a new purse bid will be ordered.

If nobody shows up to the second purse bid, the WBA will have take action - and both fighters could lose their spots.

WBA RULES

6. Failed Bid. If no qualified bid is received in response to the first purse bid request, or if the winning promoter or a boxer identified in the purse bid award fails to comply with these Rules, the Committee may request a second purse bid. In the case of a title defense, if no qualified bid is received in response to a second purse bid, the Chairman may vacate the title and the position of mandatory contender.

17. Multiple Failed Bids. In the case of a vacant title, if there are two failed purse bids, the affected boxers may lose the privilege that their position in the rankings gave them to compete for the title. The Chairman may summon immediately a third Purse Bid for the two boxers who were to participate in the deserted Purse Bids and also two other rated boxers, named by the Committee. Bids may be made for a title fight between any two of the four boxers, and the boxers named in the highest responsive bid shall fight for the title.

Both boxers are way beyond their best days and throwing down a million to secure the promotional rights is a tough sell for any promoter.

Briggs, 45, has a record of 60-6-1 with 53 knockouts. Oquendo, 43, has a record of 37-8, with 24 wins by knockout.

The WBA's "super" title at heavyweight will be up for grabs on April 29th, when Anthony Joshua and Wladimir Klitschko collide at Wembley in London. The winner of that contest has to make a mandatory defense against Luis Ortiz.

After the smoke settles, the overall winners of the WBA "regular" and "super" title brackets will have to fight each other to establish a single champion as the organization is working hard to consolidate all of their world titles in each weight class.

http://www.BS.com/briggs-oquen ... 6PXPQ.dpuf

[Enlightened-One]

If the winner of this bout wasn't mandated to fight Ustinov, there might be a market in the UK for this fight, since Briggs is known to the Brits.

So a promoter like Matchroom may have been willing to fund this fight if the winner (hopefully Briggs) faces one of Hearn's guys, like Dillian Whyte, but that clearly can't happen.

Instead, this is a fight between two boxers no one cares about for a paper title that carries no prestige, with the eventual winner mandated to defend their worthless belt against an opponent with no commercial value.

And the WBA sincerely believe that this contest is worth $1m, with them receiving a 6% sanctioning fee from the "winning" purse bid total?

[Ruthless-RKO]

If the winner of this bout wasn't mandated to fight Ustinov, there might be a market in the UK for this fight, since Briggs is known to the Brits.

So a promoter like Matchroom may have been willing to fund this fight if the winner (hopefully Briggs) faces one of Hearn's guys, like Dillian Whyte, but that clearly can't happen.

Instead, this is a fight between two boxers no one cares about for a paper title that carries no prestige, with the eventual winner mandated to defend their worthless belt against an opponent with no commercial value.

And the WBA sincerely believe that this contest is worth $1m, with them receiving a 6% sanctioning fee from the "winning" purse bid total?

I'm sure that Ustinov has got something in place against the WBA just like Oquendo. So they owe him a title shot. But everything you said is correct, Briggs has built a decent fan base in the UK.