Earlier today, Duco Events and Top Rank held a press conference to officially sign an agreement to co-promote New Zealand heavyweight Joseph Parker. Photos by photosport.co.nz.

This coming Saturday night, Parker will face Andy Ruiz, who is promoted by Top Rank, for the vacant WBO heavyweight championship.

At the press conference, Duco Director Dean Lonergan, Top Rank's CEO Bob Arum and Duco Founder and Director David Higgins sat down to sign the paperwork and stamp the deal down in writing.

Arum reached a deal with Duco to promote Parker throughout the United States and China while Duco, who's promoted Parker for the majority of his professional boxing career, looks after the Australasian market.

Despite the agreement, Arum denies it means Parker will win on Saturday.

"Having been in this business 50 plus years, I don't expect anybody to win a fight and anything can happen in a fight like this heavyweight fight but irrespective of who wins, the relationship with Duco will continue and go on," Arum said.

Top Rank Parker

Parker's may be big in New Zealand but he's yet to crack the bigger markets of the US and Europe

However, Duco director Dean Lonergan said that's about to change with the new agreement with Top Rank.

Top Rank Parker

"Don't think this is too big for us, we're just starting. We have massive global ambitions for Joseph and for a number of other fighters, just because we come from New Zealand doesn't mean to say that we can't do it overseas in fact it encourages us to go overseas because our market is so small," Lonergan said.

The Parker-Ruiz fight will be held at Vector Arena in Auckland. HBO will televise the fight in the United States on a delayed basis with their broadcast which features Terence Crawford defending his WBO junior welterweight world title in the main event against John Molina in Omaha, Nebraska.