Bizarre scenes at Duco Events press conference.

In a lame attempt to drum up interest in a Joseph Parker v Anthony Joshua unification bout, CEO of Duco Events David Higgins held an impromptu press conference at the Duco headquarters in Auckland NZ yesterday, making what they called a ‘Final Offer’ to Hearn and Joshua.. The evidently low budget presser began with Higgins trying to establish a valid case for Anthony Joshua having a glass jaw, making erratic comparisons to Parker, while both the WBO champion (adorned with championship belt and dressed in cutdown trousers) and Kevin Barry looked on uncomfortably.. Higgins then began to have furniture moved around so those in attendance could watch a budget video production which supposedly contained evidence of Joshua being dropped in combat.. Before the production commenced, Higgins addressed his actions, explaining that many would consider it a disrespectful move, going on to say that it is no more disrespectful than Eddie Hearns initial offer..
The video commenced for a couple of minutes with a glass shattering sound bite (assimilating Joshua’s glass jaw) before a couple of well documented interviews with sparring partners, Lawrence Okolie and Daniel Dubois played out containing verbal assumptions that they’d hurt or dropped the champion in sparring, followed by sketchy clips from Joshua’s amateur bout with Dillian Whyte and last April’s Klitschko fight.. I found the whole thing in bad taste and a tad desperate, considering it’s highly unlikely Parker is even close to the top of Anthony’s list of immediate priorities.. Higgins did go on to say that they were willing to drop to a 35% split of net profits and were willing to take the fight next.. Probably forgetting how little revenue they grossed in the Cojanu fight, not to mention their unorthodox route to Youtube for an even less convincing showing against Hughie Fury only weeks ago.. If the Parker camp are holding press meetings to announce Joshua’s frailties, it gives you the impression that they are banking on the flaws too vigorously, as if they are almost trying to convince themselves that they have a sizeable chance..
There are ways of doing things properly as a promoter, and what David Higgins did was nothing short of embarrassing, especially considering that he has a damn good heavyweight there with a lot more class that this stunt suggests.. I wish them well and hope that in hindsight they might adopt a more professional approach to handling a champion, Joseph Parker deserves that at least.