By Tim Royner: Dillian Whyte is disappointed with lineal heavyweight champion Tyson Fury’s choice of opponent in Tom Schwarz for his next fight on June 15 on ESPN at the Thomas & Mack Center, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Whyte says Fury (27-0-1, 19 KOs) should be “ashamed” of himself in choosing guy so far beneath his talent level in 24-year-old Schwarz (24-0, 16 KOs) to fight. Whyte feels Fury should be fighting better opposition than the little known 6’5″ German fighter Schwarz.
Fury isn’t the one that selected #2 WBO ranked contender Schwarz as his next opponent for his June 15 fight. The choice of Schwarz was done by Top Rank Boxing, the new co-promoters for the 30-year-old Fury. They want to build up the former IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Fury by making him look good in beating fighters that give him a good chance of impressing the U.S boxing fans. Schwarz, a limited fighter without hand speed, power and no experience against world class opposition, gives Fury the type of opponent that he can showcase his talent to look good in front of the American fans. The one problem in Top Rank selecting the little known Schwarz as Fury’s opponent is the casual American boxing fans will not have heard of him or Fury, so they’re not going to be interested in watching the fight. It’s one thing to have an unknown foreign fighter in Tyson Fury fighting on U.S television, but when you match him against another unknown foreign fighter in Schwarz, who comes from Germany, it’s a waste of time. Someone at Top Rank might not be aware that when you have one foreign fighter that casual boxing fans have never heard of in Fury, it’s important that you match him against someone the fans are familiar with. In this case, Top Rank should have put Fury in with WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder. But since the promotional company are looking to let the Wilder-Fury fight marinate, they’ve decided to match Fury against other fighters in hopes that the U.S boxing fans will be impressed with him. Feeding Fury soft jobs that the U.S fans have never heard of could work, but then it might just cause fans to ignore the fight, which might happen.
“He should be ashamed of himself fighting Tom Schwarz,” Dillian Whyte said to IFL TV in ripping Fury for selecting the unknown German fighter, who has been given what many boxing fans feel is an inflated ranking. “You’re top four in the world. Why are you fighting Tom Schwarz? You’re lineal heavyweight champion of the world. Why are you fighting Tom Schwarz? There are better guys out there for you to fight. Why in the hell are you fighting Tom Schwarz? You said you would fight anyone, anywhere. Why are you fighting Tom Schwarz? I get it. You just had a hard fight with Deontay Wilder. I get it. But Schwarz is nowhere near Fury’s level. Fury is going to beat him easily. I get it. Every fighter needs one of them [soft touch] during their careers. This is one of them,” Whyte said
This might not be the last of the soft fights for Fury. If Top Rank decides they want to continue to try and build Fury up, they might put him in with two or three additional easy fights to make him look good. Schwarz is likely just the first of the soft fights. With the money Top Rank is paying Fury, they can’t waste too much time matching him against soft jobs, because ESPN is televising/streaming these fights. If the viewers fail to tune in to watch the mismatches, then it’s going to be a waste of time. If the U.S boxing fans aren’t going to tune in to watch Fury beat up on unknown heavyweights, then it’s pointless in the fights being made. You can argue that Top Rank has it the wrong way around in taking Fury, an unknown fighter as far casual boxing fans go, and matching him against another unknown foreign fighter. It seems like an idea that has no chance of succeeding in terms or bringing in a big audience.
Fury is coming off of a hard 12 round draw against Wilder on December 1 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. The fight was competitive throughout. Fury looked like he was cruising to victory through the first eight rounds, but then he fell apart in the championship rounds in getting knocked down in the ninth and twelfth rounds, which resulted in the fight being scored a 12 round draw. Fury maintains that he should have been given a victory, but he’s ignoring history. When a world champion scores two knockdowns of their opponents, they usually win. The fact that Fury was being given a draw in the fight should make him feel fortunate, as he could have lost that fight, especially with the way he was knocked down in the 12th round by Wilder. Fury looked to be unconscious. The referee assigned to the fight, Jack Reiss, showed incredible patience in giving a count to what appeared to be a knocked out Fury. You don’t see that too often nowadays, a referee giving a count to a fighter that appears to be knocked out cold on the canvas. Reiss could have stopped the fight, but he gave Fury a count, and the big 6’9″ fighter got up off the canvas and survived the round. Wilder was trying to take Fury’s head off with every punch he threw in the remainder of the 12th. At the end of the fight, the judges had to decide whether to score the rounds based on Wilder’s much harder, and cleaner landing shots, or give the rounds to Fury based on his slapping shots. Fury getting a draw out of the fight suggests that he was lucky, as he likely have been given a loss if he had the same judges working the fight as the ones that worked the first Saul Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin fight in 2017. Those judges were more impressed with the cleaner, harder landing punches that Canelo landed, and they ignored the weaker jabs that GGG was connecting with. Fury got lucky with the way the judges scored his fight with Wilder.
Whyte (25-1, 18 KOs) says he would like to fight Fury if given the shot. If Top Rank signs Whyte, then he would obviously get a chance at some point, but obviously not until after Fury fights Wilder again or faces IBF/WBA/WBO champion Anthony Joshua.
“I’d drop Fury at the drop of a hat,” Whyte proudly said.
Fury vs. Whyte is probably not going to happen until after Fury has fought both Wilder and Joshua. Whyte is too difficult of an opponent for him to be given a shot at the 6’9″ Fury. Top Rank isn’t going to give Whyte a chance for him to ruin two big money fights for Fury against Wilder and Joshua. It wouldn’t be surprising if Whyte is never given a fight against Fury, as long as Top Rank is focusing on wanting putting him against certain guys that can further his career. Whyte isn’t a world champion, and he’s not a household name in the U.S. That’s two strikes against him right there. The third strike is Whyte is dangerous for a light puncher like Fury. If you add it all up, Whyte probably will never get a chance to fight Fury as long as Top Rank co-promotes him.
