By Scott Gilfoid: Heavyweight contender Dillian Whyte (20-1, 15 KOs) is going to be fighting 38-year-old Malcolm Tann (24-5, 13 KOs) in a scheduled 8 round off TV fight on the Terence Crawford vs. Julius Indongo card on August 19 at the Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Tann, 6’6”, is about as talented as Whyte’s previously scheduled opponent Michael Grant, 44, who he was supposed to be fighting on the same Crawford-Indongo card. Grant’s name was pulled from the card not long after a heap of criticism was leveled at Whyte.
I’m not quite sure if it was the criticism of the selection that led to Grant’s name being pulled or not. Whatever the case, Whyte will now be fighting Tann, whose career is not going too well at the present time. Tann has lost 3 out of his last 4 fights.
Tann was out of boxing for a 9-year period from 2007 to 2016. Since coming back in October of last year, Tann has a win over Nick Asberry and a 4th round knockout loss to Sergey Kuzmin on June 23 of this year. You can make a good argument that Tann is a step down from Michael Grant in terms of talent, which is kind of sad.
Whyte is ranked #5 by the World Boxing Council, and his promoter Eddie Hearn has been bellyaching about how he’s not been able to get him title shot against WBC heavyweight champion Deontay “Bronze Bomber” Wilder. Hearn offered Wilder $3 million for him to defend against Whyte. Wilder wanted $7 million, which was not going to happen. Hearn likely will continue to try and entice Wilder to defend his WBC title against Whyte once he gets past his WBC mandatory challenger Bermane Stiverne in his next fight. In the meantime, Hearn isn’t going to be taking any chances with Whyte by putting him in with a live body. So he’s going to keep feeding him against soft opposition.
Whyte is capable of beating contenders, but after his very, very controversial 12 round decision of Dereck Chisora last December, it looks like Hearn is not going to take any more chances with him by putting him in against good opposition. If Hearn can’t get Whyte a title shot against Whyte in 2017, then it’s going to be interesting to see if he continues to match him against weak opposition in hopes of backing his way into a No.1 spot. The WBC is usually adamant about having their No.1 mandatory contenders winning eliminator fights to earn the top spot. If the WBC does that with Whyte, he could be an unhappy camper if he’s forced to fight someone with talent like Andy Ruiz or Carlos Takam.