By Tim Royner: Dillian Whyte sees Lucas Browne as a “deluded” fighter and a “bully”, who he hasn’t liked since he first saw him. Whyte says he’s going to punish the bully Browne (25-0, 22 KOs) when he fights him in 2 months from now on March 24 at the O2 Arena in London, UK.
Whyte’s view of Browne being deluded comes from his perception that he thinks of himself as a good fighter.
Whyte (22-1, 16 KOs) wants the Browne fight to lead to him being made the WBC mandatory challenger to WBC heavyweight champion Deontay ‘Bronze Bomber’ Wilder. It’s still up in the air whether that will happen or not. Whyte is hoping it will be. One thing that might hold back the winner of the Whyte vs. Browne fight being named the WBC mandatory is #2 WBC Dominic Breazeale being skipped over. Browne is rated only #11 with the World Boxing Council. He’s ranked low for the Whyte-Browne fight to be considered a WBC eliminator match,
”It’s up to Eddie Hearn now, to get this fight as a final eliminator to make me mandatory challenger for the WBC,” said Whyte to skysports.com. ”He is a very deluded guy, so that makes him very dangerous.”
Hearn is good with the WBC. We’ll have to see if he can smooth things over with them to have the Whyte-Browne fight made an eliminator. I’m sure that won’t go over too well with the highly ranked #2 WBC Breazeale, #4 WBC Andy Ruiz, #6 Johan Duhaupas, #7 Charles Martin, #8 Oscar Rivas, #9 Agit Kabayel or #10 Carlos Takam.
There is an element of risk involved in Whyte, 29, fighting a puncher like Browne. Even though Whyte is getting Browne at a point in his career where he has a lot of ring rust on him, he’s still the biggest puncher he’ll have faced since his fight with Anthony Joshua in 2015.
Whyte must win this fight to keep his career on the path to a fight with Deontay Wilder or Anthony Joshua. If Browne beats Whyte, it would force him to spend another 2 to 3 years rebuilding his career. It’s taken Whyte 3 years to come back from his defeat at the hands of Joshua 3 years ago. Another loss would push Whyte into his 30s trying to rebuild after that. That wouldn’t be a good situation for him.
“He just seems like a big bully and I don’t like bullies,” said Whyte in talking about Browne. “He’s a dangerous opponent, former WBA ‘Regular’ champion, he is undefeated and has never tasted defeat before,” said Whyte.
Browne’s punching power makes him dangerous. He’s got big power in both hands, and he’s facing Whyte at a good time after he was hurt in his last fight against Robert Helenius. If Browne is able to connect with enough of his heavy shots on Whyte, he could get him out of there in the same way Joshua did. Joshua wasn’t doing much with Whyte until the 7th round of their 2015 fight. Joshua hurt Whyte with a right hand and took him out.