By Trevor McIntyre: Eddie Hearn says he’s spoken to both Dereck Chisora and Dillian Whyte, and he says it’s looking for the two heavyweights o face each other in a rematch on December 22 at the O2 Arena in London, England.
This is unbelievably a fight that will wind up on Sky Box Office pay-per-view. It’s hard to imagine the British boxing public being willing to pay the likes of Whyte and Chisora face each other on pay-per-view, but it shows how popular Dillian has become since his fight with Anthony Joshua in 2015.
“I spoke to Del Boy last night and talked to Dillian yesterday. It looks good for December 22 at the O2,” Hearn said to IFL TV. “That’s what we’re trying to do is get it over the line,” Hearn said.
Whye needs the Chisora fight to help raise his stock for a rematch against Anthony Joshua on April 13. Hearn says that Whyte and Jarrell ‘Big Baby’ Miller are the leading candidates to face Joshua on that date. Joshua wants World Boxing Council heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder on April 13, but his team responded to the e-mail that Hearn sent them about taking the fight.
It would be interesting to know how much Chisora is getting out of the fight. Whyte is the A-side in the negotiations, and he said recently that he had doubts whether the fight with Chisora could get made due to business. In other words, Chisora might price himself out by asking for too much.
Chisora, 34, raised his stock with his come from behind 8h round knockout win over former heavyweight world title challenger Carlos Takam on July 28 at the O2 Arena. Chisora went into that fight with a lot of boxing fans expecting him to lose. It looked like Chisora was on his way to losing he fight through the first seven rounds. In the 8th, Chisora changed things around in knocking Takam down twice to get a knockout win. The victory came at a cost though, as Chisora took a lot of punishment in winning the fight.
The December 22 date for the Whyte vs. Chisora conflicts with the big fight between interim WBO featherweight champion Carl Frampton and IBF champion Josh Warrington. If Hearn stays with the Dec.22 date, then he could cripple both the Whyte-Chisora fight and Warringon vs. Frampton ratings.
Whyte vs. Chisora needs a good undercard for it to bring in a lot of PPV buys on Sky Box Office. The fight in itself isn’t big enough to interest a lot of boxing fans to purchase it.
This is a risky fight for Whyte. If he loses to Chisora, then his April 13 fight against Joshua goes down the drain. Whyte is the leading candidate to get that fight. Chisora got the better of Whyte in their fight in 2016, but he ended up losing by a controversial 12 round split decision. This is a going to be a tough fight for Whyte. He was dropped in the 12th round last July. It was a fight that Whyte could have lost if a better referee and judges had worked the fight. The referee Ian John Lewis bungled a call in giving Whyte credit for a knockdown in round two after he head-butted Parker.