Joshua vs. Whyte to be televised in U.S

By Boxing News - 10/02/2015 - Comments

whyte555By Scott Gilfoid: Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn says the December 12th card at the O2 Arena in London, UK, headlined by unbeaten heavyweights Anthony Joshua (14-0, 14 KOs) vs. Dillian Whyte (16-0, 13 KOs), will be televised in the United States on that date. Hearn says the fight will definitely be televised, and he’s working on it right now.

It is unknown how many of the undercard fights will be shown in the U.S as part of this card.

Joshua, 25, and Whyte will be fighting for the vacant British heavyweight title. Joshua will have his recently won Commonwealth title on the line as well.

Joshua captured that strap with a 1st round knockout over Gary Cornish last month on September 12th in a mismatch at the O2 Arena in London. Whyte predicted that the fight was going to be a mismatch because he felt that Cornish had little in the way of boxing skills or talent. Whyte also accurately predicted the fight would be over by a 1st round knockout.

Whyte has major power in either hand, and he already holds a victory over Joshua in the amateur ranks from 2009 in a fight in which Whyte dropped Johua twice.

Joshua will be the A-side fighter in this fight, so if the fight is anywhere close, I can see Joshua getting his arm raised even if Whyte appears to win. I almost think that Whyte might need to KO Joshua in order to make sure he gets the victory on December 12th.

On the undercard lightweight Kevin Mitchell, cruiserweight Tony Bellew, lightweight Luke Campbell and middleweight Chris Eubank Jr. will all be fighting against still to be determined opposition. Having at least one or two of those fights televised in the U.S would be nice, but it wouldn’t be surprising if none of those fighters are televised because none of them are world champions at the moment, and you can make an argument that none of them ever will be. I don’t count interim titles as being a world champion, so that rules out Eubank Jr.

It’s going to be interesting to see how Joshua does against his first solid opponent since his controversial gold medal in the finals of the 2012 London Olympics. Many fans thought Joshua was beaten in the finals of the Olympics by Roberto Cammarelle and against Erislandy Savon in his first fight of the 2012 London Olympics. I had Joshua losing all four matches. You have to admit that Joshua really lucked out with the scoring going his way each time rather than the way of his competitors from non-British countries.

Here’s the scoring for Joshua in his 2012 Olympic matches:

Joshua defeats Erislandy Savon (Cuba) 17-16
Joshua Defeats Zhang Zhilei (China) 15-11
Joshua Defeats Ivan Dychko (Kazakhstan) 13-11
Joshua defeats Roberto Cammarelle (Italy) +18-18 (decided by countback)

Those were all very, very close scores, but I had Savon and Cammarelle beating Joshua overwhelmingly. I also had Dychko and Zhilei beating him. It was just a very oddly scored Olympics for the heavyweight division in Joshua’s fights. You got to feel sorry for Cammarelle and Savon, because those guys really did a number on Joshua and had to go home the loser in both of those contests.



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