By Charles Brun: Eddie Hearn wants the recently beaten Andy Ruiz Jr. as the opponent for Dillian Whyte (27-1, 18 KOs) when he returns to the ring in the Spring. Hearn fancies the idea of having former IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Ruiz Jr. (33-2, 22 KOs), fresh off his loss to Anthony Joshua, to battle Whyte.

Hearn doesn’t say whether Whyte would be on board with fighting Ruiz or not. An in shape Ruiz would be a problem for Whyte, especially with the way he looked in his last fight. Whyte needs to get his weight down, because he’s not going to beat Ruiz if he comes in at 271 lbs like he did against Mariusz Wach.

The Ruiz that beat Alexander Dimitrenko and Joshua would beat Whyte with ease. Hearn needs to think hard before he pulls the trigger on a Ruiz Jr. vs. Whyte fight, because it could end VERY badly for his fighter.

Ruiz’s speed and combination punching would be a problem for Whyte

It’s quite possible that Whyte would veto the idea of Hearn attempting to match him up against Ruiz. Look at it from Whyte’s perspective. He’s the WBC interim heavyweight champion, and mandatory for the World Boxing Council title. He’s in a position to challenge for winner of Deontay Wilder vs. Tyson Fury, but he’ll have to wait until 2021.

If Whyte faces Ruiz, he very likely will lose that fight. If Ruiz gets serious about his career and starts training hard again, he would likely school Whyte. You can argue that Whyte is basically another Dereck Chisora type of fighter, who can beat the fringe level guys, but loses to quality fighters.

If Ruiz Jr. doesn’t want the fight with Whyte, then Hearn says he’ll try and get Alexander Povetkin to take the fight. Povetkin (35-2-1, 24 KOs) is coming off of a 12 round draw against Michael Hunter on December 7th. That fight could have gone either way.

A lot of boxing fans think Hearn has been kidding himself for the last two years thinking that Whyte beats WBC champion Deontay Wilder. Whyte is utterly hittable, and he would be an easy mark for Wilder. He would be another Dominic Breazeale 2.0 for Wilder, and then Hearn would be regretting having made that fight.

Hearn wants Andy Ruiz Jr for Dillian Whyte in Spring

“Dillian’s next fight will be in the Spring. I love the Andy Ruiz, and I love the Alexander Povetkin fight,” said Hearn to IFL TV. “For us, it’s all well having these 50-50 fights, which he’s done his whole career, but whens the world title shot coming? These fights are very dangerous, but he’s been up for that, and he wants to be in big fights,” said Hearn.

What’s interesting is that Hearn hasn’t mentioned Luis ‘King Kong’ Ortiz or Oscar Rivas as options for Whyte’s next fight, as those guys would be just as good as Ruiz in terms of giving Whyte a good fight. Ortiz has the skills to beat Whyte, who is starting to look like a shot fighter now. Hearn might not be keeping score, but Whyte has had 4 consecutive VERY hard fights against these guys:

Joseph Parker
Dereck Chisora
Oscar Rivas
Mariusz Wach

Whyte took a lot of punishment in each of those fights, especially the last one against Wach. The big 6’7 1/2″ Wach used his size and steel chin to walk Whyte don, and force him into a brawl. It didn’t matter that Whyte won the fight. He still took a lot of hard shots from the much bigger Wach.

Whyte must wait until 2021 for WBC title shot

“I’m disappointed because they already had a ruling where he’s supposed to be mandatory for the winner of Fury-Wilder,” said Hearn to about Dillian Whyte. “They decided to suspend him. Although no one else suspended him, just the WBC. Now he’s completely cleared, but now you gotta wait until 2021. And then you’ve got the Franchise issue coming in after that,” said Hearn.

The World Boxing Council made their ruling on Whyte. If Hearn doesn’t like it, then he can complain to them. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, as they say. It’s doubtful that the WBC will change their mind on letting Whyte get a title shot earlier against WBC champion Wilder.

They’ve already replaced Whyte as the WBC mandatory with Tyson Fury, and Wilder will be fighting him twice in 2020.