By Scott Gilfoid: Eddie Hearn fighter Dillian Whyte (20-1, 15 KOs) will be fighting this summer in the United States against an opponent still to be determined. Hearn is trying to line the 29-year-old Whyte up for a title shot against either WBC heavyweight champion Deontay “Bronze Bomber” Wilder or WBO champion Joseph Parker before eventually putting him back in with IBF/WBA champion Anthony Joshua in a rematch.
That would be an in house fight for Hearn, as Joshua and Whyte are both with his Matchroom Sport promotional stable. Whyte is currently ranked #5 WBC, #8 IBF, #8 WBO, #12 WBA. Unless Hearn can convince Parker’s management to match their fighter with Whyte, it would seem likely that Hearn’s best chance of getting Whyte a title shot would be against Deontay.
I don’t know why Deontay would want to fight Whyte, because he’s not ranked high enough to fight, and he still has unfinished business with Dereck Chisora after beating him by a controversial 12 round split decision on December 10 last year. Boxing News 24 scored that fight 8 rounds to 4 for Chisora, as Whyte was hurt on 3 occasions in the fight and pretty well dominated.
It’s likely that Whyte will be fighting one of these guys this summer in the U.S:
– Eric Molina
– Charles Martin
– BJ Flores
With Whyte fighting in the U.S, Hearn will want to match him against an American for sure. But I do not see him putting him in with someone that has a good chance of whipping him like Dominic Breazele, Jarrell Miller, or Luis Ortiz. Those guys are like the third rail in the New York subway. You don’t want to mess with them, because they’re going to make it a tough night. Whyte has already been exposed by Joshua and Dereck Chisora. The last thing he needs is to face one of the above mentioned talents and wind up knocked out cold.
At the end of the day, it’s very surprising that Hearn didn’t want to make a rematch between Whyte and Chisora. What does that tell you about Hearn? Does he not believe in his fighter Whyte? It seems to me that if Hearn thinks Whyte has the goods to become a world champion, he should throw him back in the ring with Chisora in see what happens.
I get the feeling that Hearn is looking at it from a business perspective in not wanting to take any more chances with Whyte after that close call ‘win’ over Chisora. If Hearn can get Whyte a title shot against Deontay or Parker, he might get lucky and beat one of them and pick up their straps. Hearn could then put Whyte in with Joshua in a unification fight in the UK. It would play out well in terms of creating interest with the British boxing public, and obviously bring in a lot of money from the PPV buys on Sky Box Office.
“We’re going to look to box Dillian in the States in the summer and then we want a world title fight in September or October, whether that’s [Joseph] Parker, whether that’s Deontay Wilder,” Hearn said to skysports.com.
It’ll be interesting to see who Whyte ends up fighting in the States in the summer. I’m not expecting him to be fighting anyone good though. Whyte is too flawed to beat a good heavyweight. Whyte used to be a decent fighter before he injured his left shoulder. Whyte’s left hook was a dangerous weapon for him before he hurt his shoulder a couple of years ago. The injury led to shoulder surgery for Whyte. Unfortunately, Whyte hasn’t regained the power that he once had in his left arm ever since the surgery.
Whyte is now pretty much just a one-armed fighter. Whyte mainly just jabs with his left, and it’s not a powerful jab. His right hand is Whyte’s main weapon, and he doesn’t have a lot of power with that arm for some reason. Whyte isn’t going to be able to beat the good heavyweights like Deontay or Parker without punching power.
About the only way I can see Whyte beating Parker or Wilder is if we see the same kind of scoring that took place in the Whyte-Chisora fight last December. Yeah, if the judges score the fight like they did in that fight, then Whyte will soon be a champion, albeit a paper champion with the stink of another controversial decision following him around. I hope that doesn’t happen.
Whyte needs to make sure he wins his fights in a better fashion, because his career can’t be built on a series of questionable decisions. That’s why when you win a fight like Whyte did against Chisora, you’re SUPPOSED to go back and clear up the controversy by fighting him a second time so you can prove to the boxing public that you were the better fighter to begin with. Right now, I can’t say that Whyte is the better fighter between him and Chisora, because he didn’t prove it to me and to a lot of the boxing fans that saw that fight.
“We are trying to get him a shot at a world title,” Hearn said. “I believe he can beat Joseph Parker and I believe he can beat Deontay Wilder. If he can, that sets up a massive unification fight with Anthony Joshua.”
Is Hearn actually serious about him honestly believing that Whyte can beat a talent like the 6’7” Deontay? I’m starting to get a little worried about Hearn. It’s painfully obvious that Deontay is on a higher level than Whyte. We’re talking about 2 different fighters. Whyte is more at the Chisora level in my view rather than being at a higher perch where Deontay is parked at. Whyte is still stuck at the Chisora level until he proves that he’s good enough to get past that level. We’re talking about Whyte still needing to prove himself capable of beating a B-level heavyweight.
Until Whyte can beat Chisora, he’s just going to be stuck at that level and unable to get past him. When you fail a course, you’re supposed to repeat that course before you can move past it to the higher level subjects.
In Whyte’s case, he failed the Chisora fight test, and instead of going back to that fight to prove that he can past that test, he’s being moved upwards. With that said, Whyte’s fight this summer will likely be against a fodder opponent instead of someone good. Hearn isn’t going to take chances with Whyte if he believes he can get him a world title shot later this year against Wilder or Parker. But like I said, I wouldn’t waste my time fighting Whyte if I were Deontay because he’s not rated No.1, and he still had the stink of the Chisora fight following him around. There’s no upside in Wilder fighting Whyte when he still hasn’t shown that he can beat Chisora.
Whyte was going to face Marius Wach, but the failed to take place due to an injury that Whyte had suffered. That was going to be an awful fight anyway, because the 6’7” Wach is slow, hittable, and he’s not a highly talented contender.
I’d like to see Hearn match Whyte against one of these heavyweights in the top 15:
– Jarrell Miller
– Luis “King Kong” Ortiz
– Dominic Breazeale
– Alexander Povetkin
– Carlos Takam
– Dereck Chisora
– Andy Ruiz
– Kubrat Pulev
– Daniel Dubois
– Joe Joyce