Dillian Whyte inks with Matchroom Sport

By Boxing News - 05/20/2016 - Comments

whyte555By Scott Gilfoid: Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Sport has made yet another addition to their growing stable with the signing of British heavyweight Dillian Whyte (16-1, 13 KOs). This is the second big signing this week. Earlier this week, Hearn announced the signing of British middleweight champion Chris Eubank Jr. to his stable.

Both fighters will be fighting in separate bouts on the June 25th undercard of IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua’s title defense against fringe contender Dominic Breazeale on Sky Box Office at the O2 Arena in London, UK. It’s unknown if the 6’4” Whyte’s fight will make it onto the televised portion of the card, however.

“Closing out the week with a bang I am delighted to announce @DillianWhyte has signed with @MatchroomBoxing team – will return June 25 @TheO2,” Hearn said on his Twitter today.

Whyte, 28, is coming off of shoulder surgery on his left shoulder from his 7th round stoppage loss to Joshua last December. Whyte came into that fight with a dinged up left shoulder, and he tweaked it in the 2nd round after staggering Joshua with a left to the head.

Hearn is interested in matching Whyte against Joshua in a rematch at some point. We’re probably talking about the fight taking place in 2017. Having Whyte in his Matchroom stable is important because it gives Hearn a British heavyweight with talent that he can put in the ring with Joshua over and over again during his career. The only thing Hearn needs to do is make sure he doesn’t rush the fight because the Joshua vs. Whyte rematch will be better if Whyte is given time to put some wins together to rebuild his career before he faces Joshua second time.

Whyte says he won’t be fighting a top guy in his first fight back. He wants to take it easy for this fight because it’s his first fight since coming off shoulder surgery. However, once he wins this fight, he wants to look for bigger fights. Just how big is still up in the air. It will depend on how good Whyte looks.

It would be in Hearn’s best interest to let Whyte build his career rather than just putting him in with Joshua repeatedly. If Hearn wants another revenue stream, then he should keep Whyte in separate lanes for a while until he wins a world title. Once he does that, then Hearn needs to pull the trigger on a second fight between Whyte and Joshua.

The last thing that Whyte needs is to be thrown into the ring with Joshua again before his surgically repaired left shoulder is 100 percent. That would be bad for Whyte because he would get beaten again and his career would go up in smoke before it’s even had a chance to start. I’m just saying. Whyte should at least be allowed to accomplish something before he faces Joshua a second time.

Also on the Joshua-Breazeale card are the following fights:

George Groves vs. Martin Murray
Chris Eubank Jr. vs. TBA
John Waybe Hibbert vs. Andrea Scarpa
Conor Benn vs. TBA
Ted Cheeseman vs. TBA
Felix Cash vs. TBA