By Scott Gilfoid: Dillian Whyte weighed in at slim 246.5 pounds on Friday for his grudge match against Dereck Chisora on Saturday night on Sky Box Office PPV at the O2 Arena in London, England. Chisora, 34, weighed in at 246.2 lbs. After both fighters weighed in, there was a brief obligatory confrontation during the face off. It looked staged.
The two fighters had to be separated by their teams, as expected. It’s too bad Chisora and Whyte couldn’t have been professional without the need of mimicking the fake-looking confrontations that have become to common in the face offs at weigh-ins. It’s so wretched.
It would have been more interesting if Whyte and Chisora had played it straight, and just went about their business with the face off without bring the theatrics into it. The extra curricular activity was likely done by both fighters to get to squeeze a few more PPV buys from the boxing public.
Chisora’s weight is his lowest in two years since his fight against Kubrat Pulev in 2016. Chisora is four pounds lighter than he weighed for his for his first fight against Whyte in December 2016. In that contest, Chisora weighed 250 lbs, and fought remarkably well throughout the fight.
The only thing that kept Chisora from getting the victory was him gassing out after each prolonged flurry of punches he would throw. Chisora was so tired that he wasn’t able to muster enough offense to keep Whyte off of him. That took away a lot of the shine of his flurries.
The weight for Whyte, 30, represented the lowest number for him since his first fight with Chisora two years ago in December 2016, when he weighed in at 246 1/4 pounds. Whyte weighed in 12 pounds lighter today for the Chisora rematch than the 258 lbs he weighed in for his fight against former World Boxing Organization heavyweight champion Joseph Parker on July 28. Whyte is obviously looking to come into the fight with Chisora with more speed and stamina so that he can handle his furious exchanges.
Whyte needs to win this fight for him to stay in the running for a rematch against Anthony Joshua on April 13. That’s the fight that Whyte needs to make a bundle of money, as there’s no one else that will give him a big payday in the heavyweight division. It doesn’t matter that Whyte wasn’t competitive for the most part last time he fought Joshua in 2015, their mutual promoter Eddie Hearn is going to likely put them in with each other again at Wembley Stadium on April 13 and hope that the British boxing fans sellout the 90,000 stadium.
It remains to be seen whether the lower weights for Whyte and Chisora will produce an improved performance over the last time they fought. More likely that not, you’ll see a decreased performance from both. In boxing more isn’t better. When a fighter has already trained as hard as they can to get in fighting shape, it doesn’t improve things when they go beyond that. The only thing that happens is they lose muscle, and end up deteriorated. In looking at Whyte and Chisora’s physiques, they look like they’ve both been doing more bodybuilding training and less boxing training. For that reason, it’s likely that they’ll be worse than last time they fought.
Since Chisora beat Whyte last time they fought in the eyes of this writer and Boxing News 24, that’s what we’re going to see this time around as well. Chisora is a better fighter than Whyte and with more power. Whether Chisora is given the decision win is another thing. With Whyte being the more popular fighter between the two, we might see another controversial decision with Dillian getting his hand raised once again. Hopefully that doesn’t happen, but with all the talk that is being done about Joshua vs. Whyte 2 on April 13, it’s likely this Saturday’s Whyte-Chisora 2 rematch will wind up with Dillian getting his hand for another controversial win. Welcome to boxing.
