By Charles Brun: Carl Froch admires the talent of WBC interim heavyweight champion Dillian ‘The Body Snatcher’ Whyte, and he surprisingly believes he’ll give Tyson Fury just as hard of a fight as Anthony Joshua.
That comment from the former super middleweight champion Froch suggests that he views Whyte (27-1, 18 KOs) as being at the same level as IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Joshua (23-1, 21 KOs) and WBC champion Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs).
Whyte’s past performances against Joshua, Joseph Parker, Dereck Chisora, and Mariusz Wach shows that he’s NOT on the same plateau as Fury and AJ. Those efforts from Whyte indicate that he’s a rung below those two, and perhaps even below Deontay Wilder, Alexander Povetkin, and Oleksandr Usyk as well.
Froch pouring on the praise to Whyte
“More people have heard of Joshua than Whyte. But Whyte would give equally as tough a fight to Fury as [Joshua] would. They both pose their own threats to Fury in their own ways… Who deserves the shot more? Whyte, most definitely,” said Froch @FrochOnFighting Apple Podcast.
Whyte doesn’t compare to Joshua in terms of talent, and he’s not as fast, powerful, large, or as good of a boxer. Joshua checks all the boxes in having the edge over Whyte. Dillian is more of a blue-collar type of fighter, a guy that grinds out wins over B-level opponents, but then falls apart when facing the A-list talent. That’s not going to change just because Froch is high on him.
The real question to ask is whether Froch has any issues with Joshua for him to be rating Whyte as being on the same level as him. Is Froch jealous of Joshua? I’m just saying. It would seem evident from looking at Joshua’s easy seventh-round knockout win over Whyte in 2015 that he’s a better fighter than him.
Whyte was only useful in the second round of that fight, and the rest of the time, Joshua was beating him up in a one-sided match. Is Froch upset that Joshua broke his attendance record at Wembley Stadium?
Froch used to be proud of the massive crowd that he and George Groves brought in at Wembley back in 2014, but Joshua smashed that record to bits. Is Froch bitter about that?
Whyte deserves a title shot as WBC mandatory
The one thing that Froch said that makes sense is his comment about Whyte deserving a title shot. He does a crack at the WBC belt, but it took him long enough to agree to fight in a title eliminator finally.
Had Whyte agreed to fight the dangerous Luis Ortiz in 2018 when the WBC ordered the two to fight, he would have been mandatory ages ago. Whyte didn’t take the fight, and instead, he waited until the WBC picked Oscar Rivas for him to fight in a title eliminator. Was Whyte afraid to fight ‘King Kong’ Ortiz? A lot of boxing fans think so.
You can’t say that Whyte deserves a title shot based on him being rated #1 by the World Boxing Council since 2017. Contenders don’t deserve a title shot until they earn it by becoming mandatory. As such, it doesn’t matter that Whyte was ranked highly by the WBC since 2017.
The fact of the matter is, Whyte waited until 2019 before he finally agreed to fight in a WBC title eliminator.
Has Dillian improved since the loss to Joshua?
Some people believe that Whyte has improved since his loss to Joshua in 2015, but it’s impossible to tell given the opposition he’s faced. Dillian hasn’t fought any of the quality heavyweights since losing to AJ. He looked terrible against Mariusz Wach, and he struggled against several B-level heavyweights.
Here are Whyte’s best wins since the Joshua fight:
- Dereck Chisora x 2
- Joseph Parker – controversial outcome due to a blown call by the referee in giving Whyte credit for a knockdown on a headbutt
- Lucas Browne – an old guy in his 40s when Dillian fought him
- Oscar Rivas – another blown call with the referee giving Whyte a break after Rivas had him hurt by a body shot in the later rounds. The move by the referee might have cost Rivas the fight.
- Robert Helenius
- Mariusz Wach
These are Whyte’s best wins since his loss to AJ, and those fighters aren’t talented enough to say with any degree of accuracy whether he’s improved.
Whyte is fighting 40-year-old Alexander Povetkin next on August 22 at the Matchroom headquarters in Essex, UK. Povetkin (35-2, 24 KOs) is another example of Whyte facing a lesser guy, who will tell us nothing about his status.