By Scott Gilfoid: British heavyweight Dillian Whyte (18-1, 14 KOs) is hoping to fight Gary Cornish (23-1, 12 KOs) for his next fight on October 7 on the undercard of the Ricky Burns v Kiryl Relikh card at The SSE Hydro, Glasgow, Scotland. Whyte, 28, wanted to fight Sam Sexton for that card, but he’s not going to be available for the fight.
Cornish, 29, might not take the fight against Whyte though. If not, then Whyte’s promoter Eddie Hearn will need to try and dig up someone else. Cornish is not a great opponent, but you can’t blame Whyte wanting to fight him.
Whyte’s surgically repaired left shoulder doesn’t seem strong or even close to being strong since he came back from the surgery. Whyte has won his last two fights against poor opposition but he’s not using his left hand for much in his fights. He’s mostly throwing right hands and not looking very powerful.
The 6’7” Cornish was knocked out by Anthony Joshua in September 2015. Since then, Cornish have responded with two wins over Tomas Mazek and Kamil Sokolowski. Those are not quality fighters.
“I would love to fight Gary Cornish up in Scotland for the British title. I think Eddie has already made some sort of contact about that fight but I think Cornish is fighting some nobody for the Commonwealth title,” said Whyte to skysports.com. “Eddie has approached him about fighting me. He’d get more money in a bigger fight. Financially it’s better for both of us and would be a massive fight in Scotland if we could make it for the British title.”
It’s kind of sad that this is what Whyte is reduced to at this point in his career trying to scrape up fights against the likes of Cornish and Sam Sexton. If gives the appearance that he’s just trying to win no matter what. Dereck Chisora reportedly was interested in stepping in to face Whyte on the October 7 card.
I wonder why Whyte isn’t talking about that fight, because it would be a good one. I don’t know if Whyte could beat Chisora though. I guess that’s why Whyte isn’t talking about wanting to take that fight. Chisora has the punching power, boxing skills, stamina and the experience to likely give Whyte his second defeat of his career. Needless to say, Chisora would be very, very tough fight for Whyte to deal with due to his power, and superior stamina.
Whyte defeated David Allen by a 10 round decision in his last fight on July 30. It wasn’t a good performance from Whyte. His left hand power still wasn’t there for him. Before that, Whyte beat Ivica Bacurin by a 6th round knockout last June.
I don’t know if Whyte is going to be able to regain the punching power in his left shoulder. If not, then I suspect he’ll keep getting fed cream puffs until he’s put back in with Anthony Joshua for a rematch in 2017 or 2018. The fight will likely bring in a fair amount of PPV buys on Sky Box Office like their fight last December did.
I can’t see Whyte being competitive or having any real chance of beating Joshua, not with him only capable of throwing right hand power shots. Once Whyte loses to Joshua for a second time, I suspect he’ll be dumped by Matchroom Sport, because I can’t see them holding onto a fighter only capable of throwing power shots with his right hand only.
Whyte’s right hand isn’t good enough for him to go far in the heavyweight division. If he had a right hand like Deontay Wilder, then I could see him being a factor in the division, but the reality is his right hand isn’t even as good as Chisora’s in my view. But I do think Hearn will make sure he keeps matching Whyte against powder puff opponents until he feeds him to Joshua for a cash out fight. I think it’ll be a terrible fight to watch if Whyte doesn’t regain the power in his left shoulder; It’s been almost a year since Whyte’s shoulder surgery. You would think that if his power is going to return in that shoulder, it would have by now.
I don’t really know who Whyte can beat at this point other than the weak domestic level guys he’s been getting matched against. He talks a good fight outside of the ring but he doesn’t look good inside it due to his lack of power in his left shoulder.