Former friends fight to decide the one true welterweight champion, with BAMMA kingpin Alex Lohoré set to meet European titleholder Terry Brazier at BAMMA 34 on March 9.
BAMMA announced their first event of 2018 on Friday afternoon, confirming the welterweight ‘title vs. title’ fight for BAMMA 34 which will take place at The SSE Arena, Wembley in London.
“Alex ‘Da Kid’ Lohore has signed on the dotted line to fight former friend and training partner Terry ‘The Dominator’ Brazier,” the press release states.
Minutes after the news broke, however, Lohoré began claiming on social media that he had not signed the contract.
Never signed no bout agreement for this fight what is happening
— Alex Lohoré 'Da Kid' (@PeakAlex) December 8, 2017
Lohoré defeated bitter rival Nathan Jones in September to capture the gold, before defending his title two months later against top Irish prospect, Richard Kiely.
Following those first-round stoppages, Brazier presented himself as the next logical challenger, not only because he holds the RDX European championship, but due to his relentless pursuit of Lohoré since the Frenchman captured the BAMMA belt.
However, the BAMMA World champion insists the fight is not official for BAMMA 34, despite the promotion’s release confirming otherwise.
“Explain yourself why they’re promoting the fight that I’ve not agreed to. You understand?” Lohoré questioned Brazier on Facebook Live, reacting to the news. “There’s no point me fighting you in March, it’s either you fight me next week in Newcastle or I’m fighting someone else in March. Which is gonna be better for me because you’re a nobody man.”
Armed with a 10-fight win streak, “Da Kid” claimed he would only fight Brazier if the contest took place next week at BAMMA 33 in Newcastle.
The titleholder even went on to say that he would blatantly refuse to promote the fight, adamant that he doesn’t want to waste three months preparing for a ‘bum’ like Brazier.
He continued: “But I’m not doing all this hard work to get people round and organizing all of this, to fight Terry Brazier, a bum. Come on BAMMA man, sort it out because I’m not signing that.
“And if you make me sign that fight, if you make me fight Terry Brazier in March, what I’ll do is I’ll just not promote the fight because it’s useless. I’m gonna tell my people to watch it from TV, don’t even come there.”
Brazier – who won the European title in May against Walter Gahadza – was quick to respond to his opponent’s claims.
“F**king man’s running scared, the fight’s been announced, been agreed, he needs to f**king have more communication with his management team,” Brazier told his fans during a Facebook Live following Lohoré’s own video.
With the BAMMA 34 fight being billed as an all-London clash, former Para, Brazier, seemed to take offense with Lohoré’s claims that the NFM Windsor fighter isn’t from the Capital.
“Alex saying that I don’t come from London? That he comes from London. The geezer’s French-African. So I don’t know what f**king London he’s talking about. But the one that’s inside the M25 is the one that I represent, is the one I’ll be bringing the world title back to and is where I’ll be beating his f**king arse. It’s as simple as that.”
As for the situation as a whole, it’s highly unlikely BAMMA would publicly announce a fight – especially one of this proportion – without some form of agreement in place.
MMA Plus has reached out to the promotion for an official statement on the fight’s legitimacy.
Tickets (if this fight does happen) go on sale Wednesday 13 December.
