By Scott Gilfoid: Dereck Chisora says the terms for the December 22 fight with Dillian Whyte will be agreed on next week, according to Sky Sports News. Chisora, 35, says the fight with Whyte is “going to happen,” and he’s just waiting for Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn to get back next week the U.S next week to get the fight done.
Chisora is in a great position to get his asking price for the Whyte fight now that all the so-called backup plans for Dillian have trickled away. That’s what happens when you’re not serious about wanting to fight the talented contenders – Dominic Breazeale, Luis ‘King Kong’ Ortiz and Jarrell ‘Big Baby’ Miller – that supposedly were the Plan-B options for Whyte for his December 22. It’s unlikely that Whyte’s promoter Eddie Hearn even made a phone call to any of those fighters to have them on standby in case things didn’t workout well for the Whyte-Chisora II negotiations. Those guys are simply too risky for a flawed slapper like Whyte, who should have arguably lost two out of his last five fights since 2016. Chisora and Joseph Parker both beat Whyte in the eyes of the boxing fans, but the Eddie Hearn-promoted fighter was given controversial decision wins.
Whyte and Hearn have been saying that the Chisora fight was in danger of not happening. Hearn said recently that the two heavyweights were far apart in what they want in the negotiations. What might be helping Chisora in getting a better deal is the contenders that Hearn and Whyte were listing as Plan-B options, Luis Ortiz, Dominic Breazeale and Jarrell Miller, have other fights planned and can’t be used as leverage to get Dereck to come in at a lower rate than he wants.
Whyte-Chisora 2, if it gets made, will take place on December 22 on Sky Box Office pay-per-view at the O2 Arena in London, England.
“It will be announced when [promoter Eddie Hearn] comes back from America, I think. Talks are going well,” Chisora said to skysports.com. “We’re just waiting for Eddie to come back from America. He’s in America and he’ll be back on Monday,” Chisora said.
Chisora vs. Whyte 2 is a rematch from a December 2017 fight between them, which resulted in Dillian winning a controversial 12 round split decision in London, England. The boxing public saw Chisora as the winner, but two of the judges that worked the fight scored it for Whyte. Not interested in taking a risky rematch with Chisora until now, Whyte has mostly faced weaker opposition in the last two years. Whyte did beat two former heavyweight world champions in Lucas ‘Big Daddy’ Browne and Joseph Parker, but the victories failed to impress the boxing fans. Browne, 39, looked old, overweight and slow against Whyte. Parker appeared to beat Whyte, but he found himself on the losing end of a controversial 12 round unanimous decision last July in London. What boxing fans do agree on was the referee did an incredibly poor job of working the Whyte vs. Parker fight. The referee gave Whyte credit for a knocked down in round 2, which was actually a hard heat-butt from Dillian. Instead of Parker being given five minutes to recover from the head-butt, the referee Ian John Lewis scored it as a knockdown. The fight got worse from there with Whyte continually fouling Parker, and the referee doing nothing to address the fouling. It looked to some like Parker was mugged in broad daylight
“Oh man, tell the puppy not to worry,” Chisora said about Whyte.
Chisora (29-8, 21 KOs) is the fight that Whyte needs right now to interest the British boxing public enough to want to pay to see him fight on December 22 on Sky Box Office PPV. Adam Konwnacki is the only option left if the Chisora fight isn’t made, and he’s not popular enough to get the fans to purchase the fight on PPV.
For a while now, Chisora has seemed upbeat about the Whyte rematch taking place on December 2, but there’s been doubt from day one whether it actually would. Chisora probably knew that the fight was going to get made because he holds all the cards and is in a position of power due to Dillian not wanting to take any risky fights. Whyte isn’t good enough to take on the risky guys like Ortiz, Miller and Breazeale without him losing. The reason it’s important that Whyte not lose now is because he’s got the April 13 rematch with Anthony Joshua at Wembley Stadium waiting for him. Hearn has been talking a lot about how Deontay Wilder is the guy that he wants to match against Joshua on April 13, but every time he opens his mouth, it seems painfully obvious that he’s not willing to make the fight in 2019. Hearn is talking about only wanting to give Wilder an 80-20 split of the revenue for the Joshua fight if his December 1 title defense against Tyson Fury brings in less than 300,000 pay-per-view buys. If you let the 80-20 offer that Hearn is talking about giving Wilder for the Joshua fight sink in, you’ll realize that it’s far below the 33 percentage deal that former WBO champion Joseph Parker received for his fight against Joshua on March 31 in Cardiff, Wales. So basically, Hearn is saying that he’s only going to offer Wilder 20 percent of the revenue for the Joshua fight if he only brings in 300,000 buys or less for the Fury fight. Does that sound like a promoter that wants to put the Joshua-Wilder fight together? Obviously not.
Whyte-Chisora 2 could be a mere formality, as it’s not believed that Chisora will be given a fair deal by the judges in terms of the scoring for the fight. Whyte is the A-side in the promotion, and he’s already been given questionable scoring from his first fight with Chisora in 2016. As I mentioned, Whyte’s last fight against the 26-year-old Parker was disturbing with the way the referee blew an important call in the 2nd round on the head-butt knockdown, and then took a hands off approach to policing the fouling that Whyte was using to control Parker.
The boxing fans wanted to see Whyte fight Luis Ortiz, but it appears that Hearn never made a serious attempt at putting that fight together. It’s pretty easy to understand why he chose not to make the Whyte-Ortiz fight. Ortiz has the talent to beat Whyte, and ruin the big money in house fight between Matchroom fighters Joshua and Whyte on April 13. That’s clearly the fight that Hearn wants in the worst way. If Hearn wanted Joshua-Wilder, he wouldn’t be talking the 80-20 nonsense about Wilder’s cut for the fight. Wilder has made it clear that he wants a 50-50 deal, and Hearn by now knows that he’s going to have to give it to him for him to get the deal done.
Reportedly, the Whyte vs. Chisora 2 fight is supposed to be one that will bring in a massive amount of revenue as far as pay-per-view buys on Sky Box Office and huge ticket sales at the O2 Arena in London. I’m not sure that’s going to be the case. I think it’s more likely just a safe fight for Whyte, and an opportunity for Hearn to keep the fight in the UK. If Whyte had to come to the U.S to fight a talent like Ortiz, he would need to actually perform for him to have a chance of winning. Believe me; Whyte wouldn’t get a decision if he didn’t actually earn it, and we likely wouldn’t see him get away with a head-butt knockdown and fouling without being penalized and knockdown waived off. Whyte’s last fight against Parker was an abomination when it came to the scoring and the officiating for the fight. If anything, it should be Parker that Whyte is fighting on December 22 more than Chisora. I know the boxing public thinks Chisora was robbed against Whyte, but Parker got the worst deal in this writer’s opinion.