By Scott Gilfoid: Eddie Hearn says he met this week with Dillian Whyte on Monday to discuss the possibility of him facing Dominic Breazele, Alexander Povetkin or Luis ‘King Kong’ Ortiz if they can’t put together a fight against Anthony Joshua for April 13, May or June. Hearn says he’ll try and setup a fight between Whyte with Breazeale, Povetkin or Ortiz if it looks like he can’t get the Joshua fight put together.
Although hearn keeps saying that the Joshua-Whyte fight is close, he’s not sure that’ll happen. Hearn says one of the problems is Whyte wants a 60-40 split like Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury have been offered by him, and that’s not going to happen. As a contender, Whyte (25-1, 18 KOs) hasn’t done enough to be offered the same amount of money that Matchroom Boxing is offering Fury and Wilder.
“The plan now is do you do the [Joshua-Whyte] fight in April or get Dillian out for another big fight at the O2 or the Manchester Arena, and this is what we’re working on,” Hearn said to IFL TV. “We’re looking at [Dominic] Breazeale, at [Alexander] Povetkin, [Luis ‘King Kong’] Ortiz, those kinds of fights for Dillian, but do you jump in for all those marbles? You’re always gambling. Dillian is always gambling. He gambled on [Joseph] Parker. If he fights Povetkin or Ortiz, he’s gambling again. He thinks he’s going to keep winning, and he’s going to make more money. So it’s a dangerous game,” Hearn said.
With Hearn, you have to suspect that he’s mentioning Povetkin, Breazeale and Ortiz in hopes of getting Whyte to agree to a lesser amount for the Joshua fight. Those guys are all fighters that would have an excellent chance of beating Whyte, and Hearn doesn’t want that to happen obviously. He’s been matching Whyte so carefully by putting him in against beatable fighters like Lucas Browne, Joshua Parker, Robert Helenius, David Allen and Dereck Chisora. Hearn thinks those were risky fights for Whyte, but they clearly weren’t unless he views him as a B-level guys. If Hearn is mentioning Breazeale, Poetkin and Ortiz as fighters that he’s serious about wanting to match against Whyte, then he could be making a big mistake. All three of them would likely beat Whyte, and that would ruin the Joshua vs. Whyte fight in the future.
Ortiz’s name keeps getting mentioned by Hearn in connection with Whyte, but then he’s never given the fight. Ortiz was mentioned recently by Hearn, but they instead went with Chisora, who was knocked out in the 11th round last December in a very strange fight in which the referee was docking points from Dereck, but not Dillian for his fouling. Gilfoid doesn’t see Ortiz getting anywhere near Whyte. Hearn will keep name dropping Ortiz’s name, but he’s not going to let the talented Cuban fighter share the ring with Whyte, because he’s probably knock him out in the same way Joshua did in 2015. Whyte didn’t want to fight Ortiz for the World Boxing Council mandatory spot when the WBC ordered the fight. He’s not going to do it now. Hearn would be likely to trot out Robert Helenius for a rematch against Whyte than he would in letting Ortiz fight him.
For Hearn to get Breazeale to risk his WBC mandatory spot to face Whyte, he’s going to need to open up his purse and come up with a lot of sweet cash for the talented 2012 U.S Olympian to take. The towering 6’7″ Breazeale isn’t going to agree to fight Whyte for chump change if it means he has to risk his WBC mandatory spot.
Povetkin would be a very risky fight for Whyte as well. It doesn’t matter that Povetkin is 39-years-old and coming off of a seventh round knockout loss to Joshua last September. He’s still a risky fight for a guy like Whyte.