By Scott Gilfoid: WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder is giving Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn a chance to let his fighter Dillian Whyte get his badly desired title shot against him, but for him to get tha fight, he needs to face recent world title challenger Luis ‘King Kong’ Ortiz (28-1, 24 KOs) and beat him.
It’s as easy as that. All Wilder is asking Whyte to do is fight the 38-year-old Ortiz and prove that he can beat him, and he’ll give him a title shot straightaway. Wilder says he promises him he’ll give Whyte a fight without him making him wait a year, which is what he plans on doing now when/if he becomes his mandatory challenger in the near future.
Wilder says he still has a voluntary defense due to him, and even if Whyte becomes the mandatory challenger after that, he’d still need to wait at least year. As such, we could be talking about Whyte having to wait until 2020 before he gets his title shot against Wilder. But if Whyte faces Ortiz and beats him in his next fight, Wilder says he’ll give Whyte the fight that he and his promoter Hearn want. The other path to Whyte getting a title shot against him is if Hearn adds his name to a contract for him to fight IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua.
Wilder says that as long as Hearn has his name on the contract for him to get the Joshua fight next, he’ll gladly face Whyte and beat him with ease. Of course, Hearn has shown zero interest in making a deal like that for some reason. The deal would make sense in every way, but Hearn just does not want to put together a contract with Wilder’s name on it for a later fight against Joshua. The only contract that Hearn wants to make is Wilder-Whyte without Joshua being a guaranteed next opponent for Deontay.
”I have no problems with Dillian Whyte. If they put Joshua on that contract, I have no problems fighting Whyte,” Wilder said to Tha boxing Voice. ”I’ll make them another deal. If Dillian Whyte fights Luis Ortiz and beats him, I will fight Dillian Whyte. That’s another one for them. They can take it or leave it. The only way they can get me in with Dillian Whyte is to fight Luis Ortiz and beat him or you put Joshua on that contract. I will fight you easy,” Wilder said.
It sounds like a great idea for Whyte to face the talented Cuban southpaw Luis Ortiz to earn a fight against Wilder, but for some reason Hearn wants no part of that deal. Despite Hearn feeling that Whyte is the third best heavyweight in the division right now behind Deontay and Joshua, he doesn’t want to test him against Ortiz. We’ve seen the kinds of fights Hearn has put Whyte in recently against Robert Helenius, Luis ‘Big Daddy’ Browne, Malcolm Tann and Dereck Chisora. There’s nothing wrong with those type of fighters, but they’re clearly not in the same league as Ortiz in the talent department in my estimation. I see them as several rungs lower in ability, but it’s understandable why Hearn has been matching Whyte against those type of fighters. Those are what you’d call showcase fights for Whyte. In other words, Hearn has put Whyte in with guys that were designed to make him look really good without the potential of him losing. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out well for Whyte against Chisora, because he arguably lost to him in 2016, but was given a controversial decision. That fight backfired on Whyte, as he was exposed by Chisora in a big way. Whyte moved on after that controversial win and he’s ignored Chisora’s challenges for a rematch.
If Hearn isn’t going to let Whyte fight Ortiz to earn a fight with the 6’7” Deontay, then it could be a long, long time before he gets a title shot against him. My guess is it’ll be 2020 before Whyte gets a fight with Whyte, and even then it might not happen. If Wilder loses to someone before that time, then he’s not going to waste his time fighting Whyte. If Hearn does the math, he’ll realize that he’s far better off putting Whyte in with Ortiz to get him a title shot against Wilder in early 2019, then he would be if he simply waited for the World Boxing Council to order the Wilder-Whyte fight.
”Hearn wants to dictate. He wants to dictate everything,” Wilder said. ”Even if Dillian Wyte was my mandatory, I still got another voluntary. And when he becomes my mandatory, I don’t have to fight a mandatory for a year, so we’ll still be waiting. So if they want to play the waiting game and use that as a tactic, then so shall we. Dillian Whyte is an easy fight for me. I’d love to fight Dillian Whyte. It’s just the tactics his promoter is doing,” Wilder said.
So, there it is. Whyte won’t be getting a crack at Wilder’s WBC title for at least a year, possibly a year and a half. Whyte will be waiting around until 2020 under a worst case scenario for a title shot against Wilder. Hearn can speed up the waiting time for Whyte by signing him up for a fight with Ortiz or adding Wilder and Joshua’s names on the bottom of the Wilder-Whyte contract for him to get the fight against AJ once he finishes with him. It’s got to be horrible for Hearn to have a guy like Whyte that he badly wants to match against Wilder, but he has no way of forcing him to take that fight. Going to the mandatory route was a complete waste of time for Hearn and Whyte, because it’s not speedy enough. What Hearn obviously wants is for the WBC to quickly order Wilder to face Whyte straightaway with a strict time limit of 1 month to put the fight together. That would be the ideal situation. But unfortunately for Hearn and Whyte, Wilder just finished defeating his mandatory challenger Bermane Stiverne last November and he still have another voluntary defense before he has to turn his sights to a mandatory challenger.
Whyte still hasn’t even been made Wilder’s mandatory challenger by the WBC. Whyte might be ordered to fight in a final eliminator by the WBC against the likes of #2 WBC Dominic Breazeale or possibly even #3 WBC Luis Ortiz. The International Boxing Federation recently ordered negotiations to start for a final eliminator between Breazeale and Kubrat Pulev, but no deal has been made between those two fighters and it’s unclear if either of them are even going to bother making that fight. Breazeale might not even have to fight in an eliminator for him to get a title shot against Wilder. But if the WBC orders a final eliminator match between #1 WBC Whyte and Ortiz, it would be bad news for Hearn. He’s hoping the WBC will make Whyte the mandatory challenger for Wilder based off his 6th round knockout win over Lucas Browne from last Saturday. That would be way too easy for Whyte and Hearn for that fight to have made him Wilder’s mandatory. That fight was more like a mismatch between Whyte and a bottom fringe contender than anyway. I mean, look at Browne’s ranking with the WBC going into last Saturday’s fight. Browne was ranked #13 with the WBC. How in the heck do you have a final eliminator between a guy ranked #13 with the WBC and another ranked No.1? Hearn made a mistake of picking out Browne for Whyte to fight in what he hoped would be honored by the WBC as a final eliminator. That was the lazy way for Hearn to try and make Whyte the WBC mandatory. The hard way would have been Hearn to have looked at the WBC’s rankings and gone after the highest rated talent in Ortiz. It’s too bad Hearn didn’t set that fight up, but it’s not surprising. Hearn went for the easy mark for Whyte in Lucas Browne, and the results haven’t turned out the way he wanted to. Whyte still isn’t Wilder’s WBC mandatory challenger, and the reason for that is obvious. Browne was ranked too low at No.13 for the WBC to make Whyte the mandatory challenger to Wilder after his win over the 38-year-old Australian.
“I just beat the most craftiest, the most skillful guy in the division, plus he was a southpaw. Luis Ortiz would still beat anybody at the top right now,” Wilder said. ”We’ll just sit and wait. This is his [Anthony Joshua] first unification. Klitschko wasn’t a champion. They added that belt in there. This is his first unification. He can make the second one with me. Dillian Whyte might be the next biggest fight, but we aren’t running behind Eddie. Eddie ain’t running nothing over here. He don’t dictate who we fight. Just because he throws a name out and then advertises it. That don’t mean I have to fight just because he said. No, it don’t work like that,” Wilder said.
Hearn needs to stop pushing Whyte on Wilder. It’s obviously too late for Hearn to back off, because Wilder has already seen how badly he wants him to fight that guy. Since there’s no way for Hearn to get Wilder to voluntarily give Whyte a title shot, he needs to match him against Ortiz and hope he can beat him. Frankly, I don’t think Whyte can beat a talent like Ortiz, but you never know. He might get lucky and win. Whyte doesn’t have enough punching power to hurt Ortiz, and he’s going to be getting nailed by the Cuban’s left hand shots all night long if he takes that fight. It would be a good fight for Whyte to take, as Hearn is saying that he plans on having him back inside the ring in June in London. I’m sure Hearn could get Ortiz to face Whyte in June, as long as he starts making the fight now and offering him enough money to make it worthwhile. Ortiz was knocked out in the 10th round by Wilder earlier this month on March 3 in New York. It’s the perfect time for Whyte to face Ortiz with him coming off his first career loss to Wilder. Hearn should see that a chance for Whyte to face Ortiz with him possibly not at his best after a knockout loss to Wilder.
”It ain’t going to be Eddie’s way. In order for Dillian Whyte to fight me, I want Joshua. In order for Dillian Whyte to fight me, fight Luis Ortiz and beat him,” Wilder said. ”You got me, I promise you. I’ll fight Whyte with Joshua at the end of the contract,” Wilder said.
Hearn should ask Whyte if he feels like he’s up to the task of fighting Ortiz and beating him. That’s what a good promoter would do. He’d leave it up to his fighter if he wants to take a risky fight against someone like Ortiz in order to speed up the process of getting a title shot against Wilder. Do I see that happening here? No, I don’t think Hearn will even consider matching Whyte against Ortiz. Hearn is likely going to just sit and wait, and hope the WBC will force Wilder to fight Whyte quickly. Everything is working against that from happening though due to Wilder having just gotten his mandatory defense out of the way with his 1st round knockout win over Bermane Stiverne on November 4 last year in New York.
Hearn says he increased the offer for Wilder to fight Whyte. Going by what Wilder said in the interview on Thursday with Tha Boxing Voice, he doesn’t seem remotely interested in taking the increased offer given to him by Hearn, if there really was an increased offer. Wilder asked for $7 million for the Whyte fight last year. Hearn’s $4 million offer was nowhere near that, and you’ve got to imagine that a sweetened offer will fall wells short of the $7 million that Wilder wants for him to take that fight.