Dillian Whyte vs. Mariusz Wach on June 3

By Boxing News - 04/19/2017 - Comments

Image: Dillian Whyte vs. Mariusz Wach on June 3

By Scott Gilfoid: #4 WBC heavyweight contender Dillian Whyte (20-1, 15 KOs) will be headlining his own card on June 3 against #7 WBC Mariusz Wach (33-2, 17 KOs) in a fight that will be televised live on Sky Sports from the O2 Arena in London, England. This is the so-called big fight that Whyte was talking about recently. I guess it’s one of those subjective things. I’m not sure if Whyte’s promoter Eddie Hearn had someone else in mind that he was trying to get for him to fight on June 3. Surely, Wach can’t be the big name that Hearn was trying to get for him to fight on June 3.

This is what Whyte said on March 29th on his Twitter about his June 3rd fight:

”Heard from Eddie Hearn I won’t be fighting on [Kell] Brook card. I will be headlining London O2 show June 3rd against a big name @Sky Sports Boxing.”

So the “big name” that Hearn was telling Whyte about is Mariusz Wach. I do not see Wach as a big name. He’s a big guy at 6’7 ½”, 258 pounds, but he’s not a big name. Wach tends to fight in a complete stand up position, pumping slow jabs constantly, and a very, very slow right hands and left hooks. The speed and explosiveness is not there at all with Wach. He respectable power. A guy that big is going to hurt you if his shots. However, Wach is not a huge puncher and never will be. He has a lot of knockouts that have come at the expense of weak opposition.

A win for Whyte over Wach will obviously push him higher in the World Boxing Council’s rankings to put him in a better position for a crack at WBC champion Deontay Wilder. Wach is ranked high enough to where Whyte can get a push up in the WBC’s rankings. Ideally, it would be better for Whyte to face someone talented that he could fight in a WBC title eliminator. Whyte vs. Kubrat Pulev, Jarrell Miller, Luis Ortiz or Alexander Povetkin would be ideal.

It doesn’t look like Whyte is going to go that route to get a title shot against Wilder. It appears that Whyte taking the backdoor route to get a title shot against Wilder by facing beatable opposition. Whyte beat Chisora by a questionable 12 round unanimous decision last December. Chisora was beaten by Pulev by a 12 round split decision last year. In other words, Whyte beat someone that had already been soundly beaten by Pulev. The difference was that Pulev did a MUCH better job of beating Chisora than Whyte did. There was nothing competitive about the Pulev-Chisora fight. It was one-sided from start to finish.

“I’ve been working hard to be a standalone headline fighter and to headline against someone of the stature of Mariusz Wach is great,” said Whyte to skysports.com. “I want to fight for a world title in the next year. I’m in a good position to be in with my rankings but I know that Wach is a dangerous customer and can ruin my dreams, so I have to be at my very best and take him out in style to prove I mean business at the top level.”

I think I speak for a lot of boxing fans when I say I HATE this fight. There’s nothing wrong with Wach. He’s a good 2nd tier fighter in my opinion, but I don’t rate him as actual contender. Of course, I’ve seen Wach fight before, and he looked dreadful against Wladimir and Povetkin. Whyte says Wach gave Wladimir problems. Other than one round where Wach landed a few punches, the entire fight was one-sided as can be.

Wach didn’t do anything in that fight other than in round 6. The rest of the fight was like watching Wladimir hit a big heavy back with arms. Wach wasn’t punching back, and was just covering up like a sparring partner. Speaking of sparring partners, Wach has been helping Anthony Joshua prepare for his fight with Wladimir Klitschko on April 29 by working as a sparring partner.

For some boxing fans, Whyte-Wach is a ‘big fight,’ but for me, it’s not great fight at all. Wach’s claim to fame was fighting for a world title against former heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko in 2012, and then facing Alexander Povetkin in 2015. Wach lost both of those fights. The rest of Wach’s matches have come against largely beatable opposition. Wach did beat 34-year-old Erkan Teper last month on March 18 in defeating him by a narrow 12 round unanimous decision by the scores 116-112, 115-113 and 115-113. However, Teper had lost his previous fight to Christian Hammer by a 12 round split decision in October 2015. This wasn’t the prime Teper that beat David Price by a 2nd round knockout in July 2015.

“He’s the man who gave Klitschko problems and put up a good fight against Alexander Povetkin too,” said Whyte about Wach.

I must have seen Wach fighting 2 other guys rather than Wladimir and Povetkin in the past, because the fights I saw were totally one-sided. Wach looked horrible against those fighters. It’s interesting that Whyte is building Wach up by saying nice things about him, because I don’t think he looked good at all against those guys.

Whyte should have no problems beating Wach. I don’t know if Whyte will be able to knock him out though. Whyte’s surgically repaired left shoulder doesn’t look like it’s regained the strength that it once had. It’s been well over a year since Whyte had surgery on the shoulder, but he’s not knocking guys out with his left hand anymore like he used to before hurting his shoulder. In the past, Whyte’s best punch was his left hook. Nowadays, Whyte mostly uses his right hand to throw power shots. He used his left to throw jabs, and not powerful ones.

I had Whyte losing his last fight to Chisora. Whyte was shaken up several times in that fight. The scoring was very generous for Whyte. It was definitely a close fight, but it appeared Whyte was given a lot of rounds that Chisora probably should have won.