By Scott Gilfoid: In a sign of how much interest there is in the December 12th fight between unbeaten #2 WBC heavyweight contender Anthony Joshua (14-0, 14 KOs) and undefeated prospect Dillian Whyte (16-0, 13 KOs), tickets for their upcoming fight sold out in just six hours on Wednesday after they went on sale.
The Joshua vs. Whyte fight will be taking place at the O2 Arena in London, England. Joshua, 25, will have his Commonwealth heavyweight title up for grabs. They’ll both be fighting for that title as well as the vacant British heavyweight strap.
The winner of the fight will be looking to go after the EBU heavyweight title held by Erkan Teper, the German fighter that recently obliterated David Price in just two rounds.
Joshua and Whyte have been doing a lot of trash talking back and forth with Whyte appearing to get the better of it each time due to his willingness to go the extra yard to get the last word. Joshua seems to back off when Whyte starts giving it to him.
The interest in the Joshua-Whyte fight comes from the fact that they are arguably the two best heavyweights in the UK right now, and Whyte is already up 1-0 in having beaten Joshua six years ago in the amateur ranks when he really pounded him.
Joshua never avenged that loss, and now he finally gets a chance to try and do that on December 12th. It could be that Whyte just has Joshua’s number. When you watch that fight, you can see that Joshua was fighting pretty much the same as he does now with him standing in front of Whyte throwing combination.
With a target directly in front of him, Whyte was able to nail Joshua with huge left hooks again and again. Joshua couldn’t handle Whyte’s left hook power, or his right hand. Both punches did damage on Joshua.
What we found out in that fight was that Whyte is a better puncher than Joshua with slightly better hand speed. In looking at Joshua’s 14 fights since he turned pro in 2013, I don’t think anything has changed in that regard.
Whyte is still the better puncher with the faster hands. Joshua is now slower than he was in 2009 due to all the weight lifting he’d been doing since he turned pro, and because of the muscle weight he’s put on. Joshua weighed 220lbs when he fought Whyte, but he’s put on 30 pounds of muscle and now weighs 250lbs. The extra muscle hasn’t helped Joshua’s punching power or his hand speed. It’s just turned him into a bodybuilder in my view.
If Whyte is able to whip Joshua again, he’ll spoil the big plans that his promoter Eddie Hearn has for him as far as him going on to face Teper for the EBU title, and then Wladimir Klitschko or Deontay Wilder for their world titles.
Hearn would need to extend Joshua’s development in putting him in with more fodder opponents for another year or two to try and fix the problems that Whyte exposes in their fight. It’s too bad that Hearn can’t fix the problems with Joshua right now because if he did, he’d be wise to get him off the weights and to try and get him to trim off all the weight that he’s put on through weight lifting in the last few years.
Joshua stopped the big and slow Gary Cornish (21-1, 12 KOs) in the 1st round last Saturday night in a two knockdown performance at the O2 Arena. On the undercard, Whyte destroyed American Brian Minto (41-10, 26 KOs) in the 3rd round. Whyte dropped Minto twice in the fight. Minto opted not to get up after the second knockdown and the fight was halted. Whyte fought most of the fight using just his right hand. He said after the fight that he had injured his left shoulder in training.
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