In the midst of the drama around the cancellation of Brandon Vera vs Chi Lewis-Parry bout for ONE Championship event in Manila this weekend, Parry explained in a greater detail on his side of the story in an interview with mmaplus.co.uk, including the rebuttal on the accusations on Cui’s facebook page.
“The accusations from Victor Cui is a blatant lie, all paperwork, blood results, urine tests, they’ve got all of that. They are making out that I failed to send it, but they have everything. If that’s the best lie that you can come up with to save the face of the promotion and save this title fight, then that’s embarrassing. The transparency of it, people can see straight through it. It’s a shame that such an MMA giant promotion is behaving this way.”
After the news broke that Lewis-Parry would not travel to Manilla, former UFC fighter Vera took to his Facebook page and posted a video attacking the Brit, calling him ‘a c*nt’.
“In a year and a half that I’ve been campaigning for this fight, Brandon Vera has not interacted with me but once, and that’s because I was in his face in San Diego at GLORY. Because I genuinely believe he has been worried for this fight, the minute it’s confirmed he will not have to face me, he’s got a big mouth all of a sudden. Now he wants to talk smack, and he’s doing a video and he’s using foul language.
However, most interestingly is Lewis-Parry’s claim on his conversation with Victor Cui in Singapore, where the ONE Championship CEO reportedly told him that the fight with Vera ‘will never happen’, and that Cui cannot afford Vera to lose.
“I went to Singapore just after GLORY 21, I returned from San Diego and I went straight out to Singapore like a week later. At the after-party [Warrior’s Quest] I’m sitting there with Victor Cui. I ask for the Brandon Vera fight and he flat out tells me the Brandon Vera fight will never happen because Brandon is a company man, they pay him a salary, and that’s good for them in the Philippines. So his words, ‘we cannot have him lose’.
“I said, you need to give me something, if you want to make Brandon the champion, let me fight at Super-Heavyweight.
“Then I came back, and said Brandon Vera was scared to fight me, then all of a sudden I get a call. I’m in bed in The States, at like 2am, and Matt Hume is telling me ‘how would you like to fight Brandon for the title?’ I was like that doesn’t make no sense, you guys just told me it weren’t going to happen. I backed them into a corner where they had to give me the fight, but their real intention was they were never going to have me fight.”
He then when further, taking a nudge at the Evolve MMA, who is owned by ONE Championship Chairman Chatri Sityodtong.
“They are not UFC and they are not Bellator, they are not World Series of Fighting, they are nothing in comparison. No one actually cares outside of Asia. If you’re not one of these EVOLVE affiliated fighter, you’re not going to get nothing.”
With the heavyweight seemingly ready to burn the bridges, Lewis-Parry vowed to help other fighters caught in similar situations, including by forming up a fighters union, which has been a subject of a lot of debate.
“I think because I have quite a prominent voice, I’m quite outspoken, then I need to utilise the attention that I’ve got right now to make a stand for a lot of the others fighters going through the same crap. Because there are a lot of fighters trapped in contracts with ONE, it’s not just me. I would like to align myself with former rival James McSweeney, he’s actually a gentlemen and I respect that he was going through the same thing.
“Anyway I can make a change, if there is anyone out there interested in teaming up with me and maybe starting a Union of something and changing the face of the game, then I’m all ears.”
written by BRAMONO LUNARDI
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