By Scott Gilfoid: Dereck Chisora says the boxing public doesn’t want to see Dillian Whyte facing Luis ‘King Kong’ Ortiz on December 22. Chisora (29-8, 21 KOs) says the fight the British fans what to see is himself vs. Whyte (24-1, 17 KOs), and he believes that he can get that fight done this week.
The fans would kindly disagree with Chisora about them not wanting to see Whyte face the 39-year-old Ortiz, who gave WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder all kinds of problems in a failed title challenge last March. The boxing fans do want to see Whyte face Ortiz. Chisora already fought Whyte two years ago and lost the fight. Since then, Chisora has lost to Agit Kabayel, and beaten Carlos Takam and Zakaria Azzouzi. Whyte-Chisora 2 is a retread fight, and it’s still too early for them to face each other again when there are other interesting fights that can get made like Whyte-Ortiz.
If Chisora, 34, is able to come through with his huge £5 million offer last week for Whyte to face him on December 22. Whyte is waiting to see if Chisora can produce the money to make the fight a reality. Obviously, money like that would lock Chisora in as Whyte’s opponent for December.
It’s hard to believe for boxing fans outside of the UK that a simple fight like Whyte vs. Chisora 2 could involve that kind of money, because neither guy are seen as particularly talented by fans in other countries. In the UK, Whyte-Chisora 2 is a big deal, and a fight that will wind up on Sky Box Office PPV, even though neither of them are world champions and likely never will be.
“Yeah, we’re going to try to do the fight this week,” Chisora said to skysports.com. “I believe by the end of this weekend, or we’ll have done it by Friday.No one wants to see that [Whyte vs. Luis Ortiz], so I don’t know why he’s talking about Luis Ortiz. I’m the Money Man.”
Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn has Ortiz and Dominic Breazeale as potential Plan-B options for Whyte, 30, to face on December 22 if he can’t get the Chisora fight made. Hearn is hoping to get the Whyte-Chisora fight done. However, Chisora is still the main option for Whyte, because it’s a fight that will give him the biggest payday with arguably least amount of threat. Ortiz would be a BIG threat to Whyte, as would the 6’7″ Breazeale. Those are fights that Whyte could lose. Whyte has already proven that he can beat Chisora in the past, albeit by a controversial 12 round split decision. As long as Whyte doesn’t gas out like he did last time he fought Chisora, he should win.
Hearn says he wants to get the Whyte vs. Chisora 2 fight done this week. If it doesn’t get made, he says he’s going to be looking at his Plan-B options of Ortiz or Breazeale for Whyte to face on December 22 at the O2 Arena in London, England.
“Dillian Whyte will fight on that night at the O2, and we want to make the Chisora fight,” Hearn said to skysports.com.
It’s CRUCIAL that Whyte not lose his December 22 fight, because he’s the likely opponent for IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua (22-0, 21 KOs) to fight on April 13 at Wembley Stadium in London, England. You have to believe that Hearn will extend the negotiations for the Whyte-Chisora 2 fight well beyond this week in order to get the fight done. Hearn is obviously talking about this week being the deadline in order to hasten the pace for Chisora to get the fight done with Whyte. But if takes two to six weeks to get it over the finish line, Hearn will likely wait it out in order to get Whyte the guy that he feels is the best fight for him.
If Hearn does switch to a backup plan for Whyte, it probably won’t be the southpaw Ortiz, because he’s unquestionably too dangerous for Dillian to be fighting. He could mess up Hearn’s dreams of putting Whyte in with Joshua in a retread fight on April 13 next year. The fact that Hearn is now mentioning Breazeale along with Ortiz as the Plan-B backup option for Whyte is a clear signal that he wants someone else to face Dillian rather than the hard-hitting Cuban. If Hearn was serious about wanting Ortiz as the Plan-B for Whyte, he would only be mentioning his name as the backup plan.
Hearn saying that he has Breazeale as well for Whyte indicates that he’s the only true backup option for December 22. Hearn is pretty easy to read. He never matched Ortiz against Joshua when he had the talented Cuban signed with his Matchroom stable. Shelly Finkel, the co-manager for WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder, says that Hearn never wanted to match Joshua against Ortiz, which is why he signed the Cuban briefly in order to keep him away from him when he was ranked #1 as his contender for his belt. Ortiz would have fought Joshua, but instead Hearn matched him against Eric Molina and criticized how the Cuban fighter had looked in easily beating Malik Scott and Dave Allen when he had him signed with him. Letting Ortiz to while signing an arguably less talented fighter like Whyte was an odd thing for Hearn to do, but there’s likely a method to this madness. Had Hearn kept Ortiz, the British boxing fans would have applied huge pressure on him to match the Cuban talent against Joshua. Hearn would have run out of excuses eventually with Ortiz blasting through the fodder that he put in with him. Hearn couldn’t keep using the excuse that Ortiz wasn’t looking good with him almost beating Wilder, and destroying Razvan Cojanu in two rounds.
Matching Whyte against Ortiz would give Hearn a chance to show what Whyte can do against the #3 heavyweight in the world. Chisora is arguably a fringe level heavyweight, and it’s not nearly as interesting for boxing fans to see him trotted out once again for another fight against Whyte on December 22. Unfortunately, Ortiz is too talented and he would clearly mess up Hearn’s plans of matching Whyte against Joshua on April 13.