Junior middleweight world titleholder Demetrius Andrade, unhappy with his purse and by a lack of communication with his promoters, has dropped out of a defense scheduled against Jermell Charlo on Dec. 13 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Although Charlo promoter Golden Boy Promotions and Showtime, which was going to televise the bout as the opener on a tripleheader, announced the fight on Oct. 31, Andrade-Charlo was never finalized and now it's off.
"It is unfortunate as it was a good move for Demetrius and his career but we are trying to reschedule it for another date and will hopefully have some more news next week after I get back in Macau and get together with him," Star Boxing's Joe DeGuardia, who co-promotes Andrade with Artie Pelullo's Banner Promotions, told ESPN.com.
DeGuardia and Pelullo, who also co-promote Chris Algieri, are in Macau this week for Algieri's fight against welterweight titleholder Manny Pacquiao on Saturday.
Paul Andrade, Demetrius' father and trainer, who guides his career, was upset about how things went down making the fight.
"They make fights without talking to us," he said of DeGuardia and Pelullo. "They said they had a deal to for us to fight Charlo. We said, 'Really?' We are fine fighting Charlo but then we started talking about money and it wasn't worth the money. We held off as long as we could hold off before it was a wrap. It's like Arite and Joe are both my boys but I get mad because we didn't get to discuss the opponent or anything. They gave us Charlo. We were like, OK, but then we had to talk about the money. Give us a choice. How much for this guy? How much for this guy? How much for that guy?
"They never discussed it with us. They gave us one opponent and didn't want to pay us."
Andrade was offered $250,000, which was eventually increased to $300,000, which would have been a career-high.
"We're the only legitimate titleholder on the whole card and everyone else is making more than us? That's not right," Paul Andrade said. "I'm glad they're all getting paid. I really am, but pay us too. The fight's off. (DeGuardia and Pelullo) put themselves and us in a bad situation.
"We ain't worried about fighting Charlo but everything has a value. We wanted a fair purse. We've done our cheap fights. They need to put more money on the table and they need to talk to us about the plan for my son's career."
Andrade (21-0, 14 KOs), 26, of Providence, R.I. - who would have been making the jump from HBO to rival Showtime - won a vacant 154-pound world title by decision against Vanes Martirosyan last November and made his first defense by seventh-round knockout of mandatory challenger Brian Rose in a dominant performance on June 14.
Golden Boy Promotions vice president Eric Gomez told ESPN.com that if the fight with Andrade can't be quickly rescheduled then Charlo (24-0, 11 KOs), 24, of Houston, would stay on the Dec. 13 card and fight a new opponent, although not for a world title.
Gomez said Showtime Sports executive vice president and general manager Stephen Espinoza emailed him confirmation on Monday that Andrade-Charlo was off and that he was "exploring the possibility of postponing it to a later date. If he is unable to do that then we would look to get a different opponent for Charlo and keep him on the card. But with a month to go it will be tough to get him a significant opponent."
Showtime's Dec. 13 card is headlined by a welterweight bout between former welterweight and junior welterweight titleholder Devon Alexander (26-2, 14 KOs), of St. Louis, against England's Amir Khan (29-3, 19 KOs), a former junior welterweight titleholder. Interim welterweight titlist Keith Thurman (23-0, 21 KOs), of Clearwater, Fla., is also slated to defend his belt for the third time when he faces Leonard Bundu (31-0-2, 11 KOs), the European champion from Italy.