By Scott Gilfoid: After winning a HIGHLY controversial 12 round split decision victory last Saturday night over #11 WBC heavyweight contender Dereck Chisora (26-7, 18 KOs) in their WBC heavyweight title eliminator match, #10 WBC Dillian Whyte (20-1, 15 KOs) says he’d be open to a rematch with Chisora. However, Whyte is leaving it up to his promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Sport to make the final decision whether a rematch will take place.
Hearn might not be too eager to put the 28-year-old Whyte back inside the ring with the 32-year-old Chisora for a couple of reasons. First off, Chisora appeared to beat Whyte in the eyes of a lot of boxing fans including this writer. Secondly, Chisora is NOT promoted by Hearn. He’s with Sauerland. As such, if Whyte faces Chisora a second time and the judges get it right this time, then Whyte can forget about his title shot against WBC heavyweight champion Deontay “Bronze Bomber” Wilder.
As things are right now, Whyte is going to get a guaranteed title shot against the talented 6’7” Deontay due to him being Chisora in their World Boxing Council eliminator match last night. If Chisora were to beat Whyte in the rematch, then you would have to assume that it would be Chisora fighting Deontay and not Whyte. Why would Hearn want to potentially ruin a guaranteed title shot for Whyte by putting him back inside the ring with Chisora, who clearly had his number last night? The judges scored the fight 115-113, 115-114 for Whyte, and 114-115 for Chisora.
Gilfoid scored it 9 rounds to 3 for Chisora. I thought it was a pretty obvious win for Chisora. I’m not a big fan of either of these guys, but I thought Chisora was the better fighter. I had Chisora winning the first five rounds, and then holding on in the last half of the fight to get the victory. Chisora hurt Whyte on two occasions in the fight. I don’t know how the judges could have missed that.
Whyte said this via Sky Sports News HQ about a potential Chisora rematch:
“It was an excellent fight and there may be a potential rematch there,” said Whyte. “But we will see what Eddie [Hearn, promoter] wants to do and where he wants to go with it. I thought I won the fight by three rounds, but this is boxing, when you leave it to the judges.”
It’s always funny when fighters leave it up to their promoters to make the call for difficult fights. The fact that Whyte isn’t speaking loud about wanting the Chisora rematch suggests to me that he’s going to move on, and not push Hearn for a second fight. Why tempt fate, right? Chisora CLEARLY had Whyte’s number last Saturday night. When you win the first rounds, how in the heck do you end up losing the fight? Of course, that was own scoring of the fight, but I think a lot of other boxing fans had Chisora winning the first five rounds as well. At the very least, I think Chisora deserved a draw out of the fight.
Like I said, I had Chisora winning 9 rounds to 3. Each time Whyte would have a good round in the second half of the contest, Chisora would come roaring back to hurt him in the next round. Chisora wasn’t just stealing the rounds by throwing flurries late in the fight, he was controlling the rounds by landing the far better shots. I honestly was shocked when I saw the scores after the fight. I figured that Whyte would be tough to beat going into the fight due to his promoter Eddie Hearn being the lead promoter on the card, but I still felt that Chisora would be able to win if he clearly beat Whyte like he did last night. Winning by six rounds should have been enough, but I guess Chisora needed a knockout for him to get the victory.
I’m not surprised that Chisora wasn’t too happy at greeting Whyte after the fight. Why would he be happy? If the shoe was on the other foot and Whyte was the one that found himself on the receiving end of a controversial decision, I doubt that he’d be happy about it.
“Dereck is very experienced,” said Whyte. “He knows what to do to steal rounds, when to take breaks, when to have a go, so I had to out-kid and out-play him at certain points, let him unload, let him think he is getting success, and then show him that ‘I’m not hurt, it’s my turn now’. It is like a game of chess.”
Nah, Chisora was stealing rounds, he was winning them or at least he should have been winning them. Chisora was outworking Whyte, and landing the more telling blows. If you’re scoring fights based on who landed the better shots rather than who was landing the jabs, then Chisora was the winner last night. He landed the far better shots in most if not all of the rounds. Whyte was landing a lot of jabs from the distance, and getting belted each time Chisora would come forward.
Whyte and Hearn can obviously do whatever they want to and move on rather than fight Chisora a second time, but I think it looks bad when you walk away from a controversial win and pretend it didn’t happen. Whye is better off fighting Chisora a second time, because it’s not as if he’s going to be able to get his now guaranteed title shot against WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder anytime soon. Whyte will be lucky if he gets a crack at fighting Wilder by 2017.
I see Whyte having to wait until 2018 before he gets his title shot against Wilder. What else is Whyte going to be doing in 2017 if not fighting Chisora again? Is Whyte going to fight a rematch against Dave Allen or fight Luis Ortiz? I doubt it. There’s nothing else for Whyte. If all Hearn is going to do is put Whyte in easy record padding fights until he gets his title shot against Deontay, then it’s going to be sad news. The boxing fans want to see Whyte in important fights, and not a bunch of mismatches like we’ve been seeing lately with him.