Hearn wants Whyte and Chisora to have one face off for fans

By Boxing News - 11/22/2016 - Comments

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By Scott Gilfoid: After the way British heavyweights Dillian Whyte and Dereck Chisora were trying to get at each other recently during the filming of the ‘Gloves are off’ special, the British Boxing Board of Control has advised that the two heavyweights be kept apart until their fight next month on December 10 at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England.

The BBBofC wants to make sure there are no problems between the two that could lead to a blow up. However, Whyte’s promoter Eddie Hearn wants to have at least one face-off between Whyte and Chisora for the boxing fans in the buildup to the fight.

It’s hard to get fans excited about a fight if the two fighters can’t face off and stand next to each other. Hearn is reportedly speaking to the BBBofC to see if he can get permission to have the two together as long as he has security there to monitor them.

This is an important fight for both Chisora (26-6, 18 KOs) and Whyte, because the winner of the contest will keep alive their hopes of getting a title shot against IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua, as well as the other top heavyweights. Chisora and Whyte are little more than fringe contenders at this point. Whyte (19-1, 15 KOs) is ranked #10 WBC.

Chisora is ranked #11 WBC, #11 IBF, #13 WBA. Chisora already got a title shot against former WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko in 2012, but he was soundly beaten by a 12 round unanimous decision. You can argue that Chisora didn’t deserve the title shot, because he’d been beaten in two out of his last three fights before that.

It’s quite usual for heavyweights to get title shots with them having lost their last fight, but it’s almost unheard of for them to get title shots when they’ve lost 2 out of their last 3 fights. I still don’t know why Vitali gave Chisora a shot at his WBC title four years ago, because it was just an odd thing to do.

Since Chisora’s loss to Vitali, he’s posted a 9-3 record. Chisora was recently beaten by Kubrat Pulev last May by a 12 round split decision. That was a very weirdly scored fight if you ask me. Two judges had Chisora losing by the scores 116-112 and 118-110. The other had Chisora winning 115-113. Gilfoid scored it 118-110 for Pulev. He had it as a one-sided mismatch in favor of Pulev.

Hearn said this to skysports.com about the Whyte vs. Chisora fight:

“The board have requested that we do not have any further face-offs between Dillian and Dereck for safety reasons,” said Hearn. “I have spoken to them and I do feel it’s important to have one for the fans’ build-up and am working on ways to come up with the correct security measures that will satisfy the board.”

Frankly, I don’t know if it’s worth it to have a face-off between Chisora and Whyte. I don’t think there’s a whole heck of a lot of interest from the British boxing fans in this fight. Whyte was recently knocked out by Joshua, and he’s looked terrible in his last three fights since then.

Whyte had surgery on his left shoulder, and he’s not been able to get the power back in that arm that he had before in my opinion. I don’t see Whyte using his left hand much in his fights. Before the surgery, Whyte’s main weapon was his left hand. Since the surgery, Whyte’s left hand is a forgotten weapon, and I’m starting to think he’ll never get the power back again.

As for Chisora, he’s never looked great. He’s always been a flawed heavyweight with a round body, and slow hands. Chisora tends to fight in the old Joe Frazier type with a lot of head movement and a squared up attacking type that makes him easy to hit. Chisora’s fighting style works against 2nd and 3rd tier fodder heavyweight opposition, but it’s a fail whenever he steps it up against bigger heavyweights, as we’ve seen in his losses to Robert Helenius, Pulev, Vitali and Tyson Fury. Chisora was also beaten by David Haye in 2012 by a 5th round knockout.

Haye appeared to only fight hard in the 5th, when he suddenly came alive and dropped Chisora twice. It wasn’t even a fight after Haye got serious with Chisora.

I think most if not all if the interest in the December 10 card is going to be boxing fans wanting to see the main event between Joshua and Eric Molina. The other fights on the card are pretty much an afterthought. The fans will put up with the fights while waiting for the Joshua-Molina fight, but they’re not going to get too excited about them. I expect the fans to be yapping away while the undercard fights are taking place. The fans will likely give half their attention to the fights until the headliner fight between Jacobs and Molina.

I don’t think that’s a good fight at all. It’s a terrible mismatch of the first order. I still don’t understand why Hearn picked out Molina to fight. There’s no real gain for Joshua in fighting Molina, because the guy was flattened by Deontay Wilder in 9 rounds last year and Chris Arreola in one round in 2012. Why in the world did Hearn pick Molina after he’d been knocked out by those guys? It’s all so weird. In a million years, I don’t think I would ever come up with an odd decision like Hearn did in selecting Molina. I guess he thinks Molina is popular and well-known in the U.S. Let me tell you, he isn’t. Molina is known to the hardcore boxing fans in the U.S, who know him as the guy that was knocked out by Arreola and Wilder. I could be wrong, but I believe those are the only times Molina’s fights have been televised on U.S TV. Some pick, Hearn made in selecting Molina.

Besides the Chisora vs. Whyte fight on the undercard of the Joshua vs. Molina card, unbeaten super middleweight contender Callum Smith (21-0, 16 KOs) will be fighting the light hitting Luke Blackledge (22-2-2, 7 KOs) in a 12 round fight. With will be making a defense of his British 168kb title.

I’m still trying to figure out why Smith hasn’t dumped that trinket title. I think he should have dumped it the moment he won it, because there’s no point in him holding onto the belt when he’s on the verge of fighting the winner of the January 14 fight between IBF champion James DeGale and WBC champ Badou Jack.

I’m not sure if this is a move done to help validate the 26-year-old Smith in the eyes of the British fans by showing them that he at least has some title in his possession, even if it’s just a domestic level one. If Hearn is the one that told Smith to go fight for that belt, I would have told ‘forget it. I’m not wasting time fighting for domestic level straps.’ Smith doesn’t need to be holding onto the lower level belts at this point.

If it was me, I’d toss it. Of course, I would have never fought for it in the first place. If my promoter told me to fight for it, I’d say, ‘Nope, you fight for it. I’m not wasting my time.’ Smith has had the British strap since knocking out Rocky Fielding in the 1st round last year in November. Since then, Smith has won the EBU super middleweight title off of Hadillah Mohoumadi in April of this year. Smith won the WBC Silver super middleweight title against Christopher Rebrasse in June of last year. Smith has only defended that belt twice against Fielding and Norbert Nemespati.

Smith is Badou Jack’s WBC mandatory.

“Luke is a good fighter, he comes to win, he’s game and durable and it promises to be a cracking fight.” said via skysports.com. “I’m proud to be British champion and I’ll defend it until I can get a fight for a world title. If Jack wins it’ll probably be in Vegas and that’s every fighter’s dream to fight for a world title in Vegas, but if James wins, which I think he will, then that’s a massive domestic fight and we’ve seen that the British fans love those events.”

I don’t know that DeGale is going to beat Badou Jack. If I were Smith, I wouldn’t get too excited about fighting DeGale. I’d be thinking Badou Jack all the way. I’m just saying. I don’t want Smith to be upset if his hopes for a fight against DeGale never materialize due to Badou beating him.

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

– Khalid Yafai will fighting WBA super flyweight champion Luis Conception for his title.

– British light heavyweight champion Hosea Burton (18-0, 9 KOs) facing Fran Buglioni (18-2-1, 14 KOs).

– Former WBA super bantamweight champion Scott Quigg (31-2-1, 23 KOs) fighting an opponent still to be determined.

– Unbeaten heavyweight contender Luis Ortiz (26-0, 22 KOs) fighting an opponent still to be determined.

– Super welterweight Marcus Morrison (13-0, 10 KOs) fighting an opponent still to be determined.

– Super featherweight Katie Taylor making her debut.