By Charles Brun: Anthony Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn says Deontay Wilder won’t be fighting Luis Ortiz next like he’d originally planned to do. Instead, he thinks Wilder (41-0-1, 40 KOs) will defend his WBC heavyweight title next against Tyson Fury in a rematch rather than taking the risky second fight against ‘King Kong’ Ortiz (31-1, 26 KOs) later this year.
Hearn states that Dillian Whyte will face the winner of the Wilder-Fury rematch, after he defeats unbeaten Oscar Rivas next month on July 20 at the O2 Arena in London, England.
Eddie Hearn talks about Wilder facing Fury
“I don’t believe Wilder will fight Ortiz. I believe he’ll fight Tyson Fury next,” said Hearn to Boxing Social. “I think that’s what he’ll do, and I think the winner will have to fight Dillian Whyte. I don’t think Wilder will take the risk of fighting Ortiz, which is very bad on Ortiz, considering they made him turn down the Joshua fight,” said Hearn.
Hearn is doing a lot of speculating in predicting that Wilder won’t take the fight with the 40-year-old Ortiz like he’d originally planned to do. Although Fury’s promoters at Top Rank Boxing have suddenly changed their minds abut wanting to wait until 2020 before making the fight, Wilder is interested the Ortiz fight to clear up the controversy surrounding their previous match in 2018. Wilder said he wants to give Ortiz a rematch, and he’s not one to go back on his word.
It sounds far-fetched what Hearn is talking about. He might as well be talking about a science fiction movie, because he’s coming up with a lot of stuff that could be wrong. There’s no guarantees that Whyte (25-1, 18 KOs) will beat Rivas (26-0, 18 KOs). Rivas is a tough fighter, and Whyte has looked chinny and beatable in his recent fights. Whyte was hurt in his fight with Joseph Parker last year, and would have lost that fight if the referee was on his job. Hearn is making the same mistake he made in the Joshua vs. Andy Ruiz Jr. fight in looking passed one of his fighter’s opponents.
Hearn says Deontay fights Fury next
“I think they [Wilder and Fury] will go straight into the fight for the end of the year, and then the winner will have to fight Dillian Whyte,” said Hearn.
If the money is what Wilder and his team are focused on, then they’ll take the rematch with Fury next rather than fight Ortiz. Fury’s promoters at Top Rank are paying him a lot of green stuff, and they didn’t sell a lot of tickets for his last fight against Tom Schwarz last Saturday night at the MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas, Nevada.
A little over 5,000 tickets were purchased for the Fury-Schwarz fight by boxing fans. Top Rank might be reluctant to put Fury in with another contender later this year, and not make money off the fight. Fury’s getting millions as part of his new contract with Top Rank and ESPN.
It’s important that Fury be involved in fights that make money against Wilder, Anthony Joshua and Ruiz Jr. Top Rank promoter Bob Arum thought that the American fans would quickly take a liking to Fury after seeing him defeat Schwarz, but unfortunately that didn’t happen. The fans weren’t excite by this fight because it was such a horrible mismatch.
Whyte vs. Rivas will be for WBC interim and mandatory spot says Hearn
“I think it’ll be for the interim [WBC] title, and the mandatory position,” said Hearn about the Whyte vs. Oscar Rivas fight on July 20. “It’s just a case of when [the WBC will order the Whyte-Rivas winner to face Wilder] it’ll be. 600 days this week since the WBC made Dillian Whyte #1. We don’t want to wait too much longer. July 20th will be a very important fight for his [Whyte] career, because if he wins that fight, we will get a shot at the WBC world title,” said Hearn.
The WBC deciding to make Whyte the interim WBC champion and mandatory for Wilder doesn’t mean that he’s going to get a quick title shot against him. As we saw with Dominic Breazeale, he had to wait two years before he eventually got his title shot against Wilder. If Whyte is made the WBC mandatory challenger, he might not gt his own title shot until 2021.
