By Charles Brun: Dillian Whyte is pushing to replace injured Deontay Wilder to take on WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury later this year. The former WBC champion Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KOs) stated that he had biceps surgery to repair a problem from his last contest against Fury in February.
It’s unknown how long it’s going to take before the 34-year-old Wilder can fight again. The current plan is for Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs) to defend against Deontay in October in Las Vegas. Wilder says he’ll start training in May.
Whether Wilder’s surgically repaired bicep will allow him to begin training or not is the big question. Assuming the problem persists beyond May, it could impact his October trilogy match with Fury. In that case, Whyte (27-1, 18 KOs) is ready and willing to step in to take Wilder’s place.
Dillian wants injured Wilder out of the picture
Whyte, 32, is already Fury’s WBC mandatory challenger, and he’s supposed to be challenging for the title in February. However, few boxing fans believe Whyte will get the opportunity to fight Fury at that time due to probable unification match between him and IBF/WBA/WBO champion Anthony Joshua.
“Why don’t we just get it on,” Whyte said to skysports.com on a fight between him and Fury. “Why wouldn’t he want to fight me instead of waiting for an injured Wilder to recover, as he may not even be ready by October due to the severity of his injury.”
Fury is under contract to face Wilder, and the only way he can take on a replacement opponent like Whyte would be for the WBC to vote on it. Given how long Whyte has already waited for a title shot, it’s not realistic to assume that the WBC will let Fury face him next. Unless Wilder’s recovery from biceps surgery stretches into 2021, Fury will probably wait.
Whyte is already scheduled to face Alexander Povetkin next. For Whyte to be complaining about wanting a title shot against Fury now, it appears that he’s looking past Povetkin and counting the contest as a victory already. Under the current circumstances, Whyte vs. Povetkin might not take place until later this year if it keeps getting postponed.
Whyte still has Povetkin to deal with
Povetkin, 40, is up there in age, but he can still punch with significant power, and he possesses the experience to defeat Whyte. That will be a real disappointment for Whyte and his boxing fans if Povetkin defeats him.
It would be four years of hard work down the drain for Whyte. That’s how long it’s taken Whyte for him to come back from his seventh-round knockout loss to Joshua in December 2015.
Whyte has a couple of close calls since then in narrow victories over Dereck Chisora and Joseph Parker. Those were fights that Whyte could have lost with different officiating, and he’s quite lucky to have avoided losses. Whyte is a good heavyweight, but there’s not a lot that separates him from the likes of Parker, Chisora, and Povetkin.
