Rich Franklin refutes Lewis-Parry ONE Championship allegations

ONE Championship booked Brandon Vera to fight the undefeated Chi Lewis-Parry for the league’s inaugural heavyweight championship at ONE 35 on Dec 11. Then it was announced that Lewis-Parry had failed to submit required medicals and drug tests, and failed to board the plane to Manila. Lewis-Parry was pulled from the card, and replaced with Paul Cheng.

Vera was not impressed, and saddled Lewis-Parry with a new – and NSFW – ring name.

Chi ‘B!^$# A$$ V@&!#@ C@#^’ Parry ” he began, via Facebook. Then he said he felt sorry for Mrs. Lewis-Parry, as she was not married to a man.

Lewis-Parry offered a strident denial, via mmaplus.co.uk.

The [pre-fight] press conference, they didn’t fly me out, they didn’t book a flight, they told me they didn’t want me,. had a dispute, originally they wanted me to gout there for ages, but I was only allowed to go on my own. I said, ‘I’m not coming out there for two weeks for a press conference, let me bring my trainer’.

They said no, you’re not allowed to [bring my coach]. So I said I can’t come for two weeks, but I can come for the press conference, I think it was like five days or something, I said I could do because it’s a long time to take off training when you’re four weeks away from a comp.

Then they turned around and said ‘actually we don’t need you for the press conference’, so they didn’t book me a flight, they didn’t do nothing. I kicked up a bit of a fuss about that.

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.

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.

I talk a lot of crap, but I never, never attack people’s families or their loved ones, because at the end of the day I’m not classless. That speaks volumes for him and the promotion of ONE Championship, because they are perfect for each other because neither of them have morals or respect.

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 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.

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.

There’s a lot of slander, they’re using my name as if I’m bad for promotions, like I don’t turn up and do my obligations or my duties. That’s not true, because they kept me away. They even said about me not getting on my flight, but I’m not being funny, when someone from your office calls me and tells me I’m no longer required, then why am I going to get on a flight? No one would do that. I just wish they would be honest about it.

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.

ONE Championship vice president Rich Franklin, who has earned an impeccable reputation in the MMA space, issued a statement, via Facebook.

I was looking forward to the Brandon Vera v. Chi Lewis Parry fight this week as much as every other fan. It is unfortunate to see this scenario unravel, and while I have seen many situations like this during my career, it is still baffling to me. Chi believes the organization has it out for him. If you think about this logically, ONE spent a tremendous amount of money marketing a fight between Brandon and Chi…only to remove Chi at the last minute??? This makes no sense.

Since Chi is attacking ONE’s integrity, I decided to personally dig into this myself.

Chi wrote on his social media that ONE had not booked his flight to Manila for the press conference in October or for the fight in Manila. I am not sure which he is referring to when he replied “NOPE”, ONE has a copy of the paperwork and official e-ticket booked for the press conference by our PR team provided as well as the fight week ticket.

In Chi’s post, he claimed that a company representative told him not to board the plane for Manila this week. Unfortunately, it is another falsehood told by Chi or his management. Again, it makes zero sense for ONE to spend significant sums of money on marketing a fight only to pull it.

I have also spoken with our athlete services department about Chi’s medical and drug tests. There’s a detailed email timeline of the correspondence with Chi’s management as part of ONE’s records and recorded documentation of correspondence that began November 26th, with Chi’s manager ultimately giving assurance on December 2nd that Chi would complete testing before arriving in Manila…along with confirming his shorts color and entrance song. Last week, Our VP of Competition, Matt Hume, was concerned enough about the situation that he asked Paul Cheng to come to Manila to do media and act as a last minute replacement in the event Chi did not submit medicals. As it turns out, Matt Hume’s decision to have a backup plan for our main event was the correct one.

Finally I spoke to GAB (Games And Amusements Board), the governing body in the Philippines, in the event Chi sent his testing directly to them, and they had not received the proper testing either. It is clear that Chi did not provide the items he claims he has, and I welcome him to show us proof rather than accusations.

On December 7th, our Athlete Services reached out to Chi’s manager via text at the time Chi should have been at the airport boarding for Manila…enquiring of Chi’s whereabouts. No reply was given.

No trash talk…just facts. We were taken by surprise that Chi did not board his flight, as Matt Hume and I were looking forward to meeting him upon his arrival.

And so the fight goes on. You can catch ONE Championship 35 via Online pay-per-view.