By Jim Maltzman: Dillian Whyte’s decision to take legal action against the WBC over the date of his mandated title shot has little chance of success says, Tyson Fury. With boxing being put on hold due to the pandemic, it’s thrown off all the previously planned bouts.
WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman recently said that Whyte would get his title shot by February of 2021, but that’s now looking like an impossibility. The reason for that is apparent. Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is talking of staging the Fury vs. Deontay Wilder trilogy fight on December 26.
If that date sticks, then there’s no chance at all of the winner getting back in the ring to defend the WBC title against mandatory challenger Whyte (27-1, 18 KOs) by February 2021.
The WBC has a procedure for mandatory
Even if this were the 1950s, it would be hard for the Fury-Wilder III winner to return to the ring to face Whyte after fighting in December.
“There is a procedure with regards to the date of the mandatory in the heavyweight division,” said WBC president Sulaiman to Skysports.com.
Arum says he’s going to be talking to Sulaiman about delaying the WBC mandatory or “eliminate” that altogether. If the WBC does that, then all the time that Whyte spent persuing a title shot with the organization will have been wasted.
Some boxing fans think Whyte should have changed course with the direction he’s been heading in by steering away from the WBC title route, going after the IBF/WBA/WBO belts, which are held by fellow stablemate Anthony Joshua.
It’s believed that Whyte stuck it out in going after the WBC title because he could use the belt as leverage to get a bigger purse split in a fight against Joshua.
Whyte has been waiting since last July
Whyte, 32, beat Oscar Rivas by a 12 round decision last July in a WBC title eliminator to become the mandatory challenger. At the time of that fight, Deontay Wilder was the WBC champion. Fury recently beat Wilder to take over as the new WBC champion earlier this year in February.
Where things got messy is when Fury revealed that he and Anthony Joshua had agreed to a two-fight deal for 2021. When that news was announced, the immediate question from fans is, ‘What happens with Whyte? Does he get title shot in early 2021, or does he have to wait until 2022?’
Also, Fury notes that he was initially supposed to be fighting Wilder in July of this year, but that can’t happen because of the pandemic.
So in other words, many of the fights that were supposed to have been taking place in the summer months, they won’t be able to happen for the scheduled dates.
Arum says the World Boxing Council could make Fury Franchise champion if Whyte keeps pushing.
There’s no way of knowing now when any of them will happen. The second wave of the pandemic could foil everything if it hits hard this winter in the places where Arum is hoping to stage the Fury-Wilder 3 fight.
Whyte won’t go far with suing says Fury
“He won’t go very far with suing because everything has been put on hold, hasn’t it?” said Fury to Behind The Gloves in reacting to Dillian Whyte suing the WBC over the date of his titles shot.
“It’s like the world has been put on hold, so everything has got move along with the holdback. I was supposed to fight [Wilder] in July, but that’s not happening now. I’m not going to sue from it because it’s the pandemic, and obviously, I won’t get anywhere, and I’m sure his lawyers know what they’re doing,” said Fury.
In this interview, Fury didn’t say that Whyte won’t get his title shot before he faces Anthony Joshua twice. In another recent interview, Fury stated that Whyte wouldn’t be getting his title shot until after he meets Joshua TWICE next year.
If Whyte can legally get his title shot before Fury faces Joshua next year, then it’ll be interesting to see what Arum and the WBC do about that. Will they let Whyte get in the way of the most significant heavyweight match in British boxing history between Fury and Joshua?
It’s tough to believe that Arum won’t sit down with WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman and ask him to make Fury their Franchise champion. That’s the most logical move that the WBC can make if they want the Joshua vs. Fury fights to go ahead without a hitch in 2021.
The other option would be for Fury to vacate the WBC belt so he can move forward to face Joshua without being stuck wasting four months on the Whyte fight.
Fury: The fights are a million miles away
“Whoever is available at the time, you have to fight,” said Fury. “These fights with Wilder, Joshua, and Whyte, they’re all a million miles away anyway. So I’m not thinking about them much at the moment.
“I’m thinking about staying fit and active. There’s not much I can do about anything because, at the moment, I’m signed to face Deontay Wilder. I know he’s not going to not take the fight.
“He has to take the fight because it’s the biggest available money for hm. Anything can happen in that fight. If he knocks me out, then there is no rematch clause again, and then he’ll probably have to fight Dillian Whyte or Joshua or whatever.
“We can only take one fight at a time. Although I’m very confident in my ability, I’m not Houdini. I can’t see the future. I can’t see who’s going to fight next or whatever. As for Dillian Whyte, they all want to fight at the moment, but there is no fight. We all know there are no fights, so it’s not even a possibility if we wanted to. It’s not going to happen,” said Fury.
And Whyte may realize himself that his chances of getting his way with his title shot in February have a slim chance of happening. It’s unrealistic for the winner of the Fury vs. Wilder 3 fight to hop back in the gym after they fight in December to start getting ready to face Whyte in February.
