By Kenneth Friedman: The WBC revealed this week at their 57th convention that even if Dillian Whyte’s situation with UKAD is cleared up in his favor, he’ll need to wait until February 2021 before he’ll be able to fight for a world title with the organization. Whyte (26-1, 18 KOs) will have to wait 16 months before he’ll have a chance to fight WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder.
Whyte’s promoter Eddie Hearn believes that even then, he won’t be fighting Wilder, because he expects the World Boxing Council to make ‘The Bronze Bomber’ their Franchise champion. The good news potentially for Whyte is that he would likely be elevated to the new WBC heavyweight champion. But the negative is he won’t have a shot at fighting Wilder for the belt.
Hearn says Whyte WON’T get a title shot against Wilder
“Yes,” said Hearn to IFL TV when asked if he thinks Deontay Wilder will be made Franchise champion. “We had a ruling from the WBC that Dillian Whyte would be the mandatory to Wilder-Fury 2. I’m thinking, ‘what’s going on here?’
“We already had a ruling that Dillian Whyte is the mandatory for the winner. So why now is it delayed for another year? It’s all irrelevant anyway, because they’re going to make Wilder Franchise champion, so he’s NOT going to get a shot anyway.” said Hearn.
There’s still a lot of things to be decided though. If Whyte’s B-sample comes up dirty with UKAD, then none of this matters. He obviously won’t be the mandatory for Wilder in February 2021, and who knows when Whyte will get a title shot at that point. It would obviously be better for Whyte to simply go through Hearn to get a title shot against possibly Anthony Joshua IF he wins back his IBF/WBA/WBO belts from Andy Ruiz Jr. on December 7th. That’s something you can’t plan for unfortunately.
Should Whyte have fought Joshua for title?
Whyte had a chance to fight Joshua recently, but he didn’t take the fight. Instead, Whyte tried to go the WBC route to get a title shot against Wilder, and that didn’t workout dell for him. After Whyte beat Oscar Rivas (26-1, 18 KOs) by a 12 round unanimous decision on July 20 to win the interim WBC heavyweight title, his A-sample reportedly turned up positive for a banned substance.
Rivas wasn’t informed about it, and the fight still went ahead. Ever since then, Whyte has been waiting for UKAD to reveal the results of his B-sample. It’s now 3 months later, and UKAD still hasn’t announced the results. It’s unclear what the hold up is. It’ll be interesting if this process still going on a year from now.
Here’s what the WBC said this week:
“Heavyweight: Champion Deontay Wilder (U.S.A)
Wilder is scheduled to make a voluntary title defense on November 23 against No. 3 ranked Luis Ortiz of Cuba. The WBC has also approved the rematch against No. 2 ranked Tyson Fury of Great Britain to be held in 2020. No. 1 ranked Dillian Whyte’s situation is in process with UKAD and Whyte’s representatives, and with the WBC. If his situation is resolved, he will become the mandatory challenger for February, 2021.”
It doesn’t sound like a good situation for Whyte right now in terms of fighting for the WBC belt. It’s hard not to look at Whyte’s promoter Hearn, and wonder why he hasn’t given him a rematch with Joshua yet. Even without a world title on the line, Whyte could make big money in a rematch with Joshua. Why hasn’t Hearn hooked Whyte up?
