By Charles Brun: Dillian Whyte has no interest in accepting the offer to him by promoter Frank Warren to face the highly ranked Daniel Dubois. Whyte (27-1, 18 KOs) says the 22-year-old Dubois (14-0, 13 KOs) brings nothing to the table for a fight against him, and he’s not interested in entertaining the idea.
The argument that Whyte makes about him having nothing to gain in fighting Dubois can also be applied to the 40-year-old Povetkin, who was knocked out by Anthony Joshua not long ago in 2018.
If Whyte has nothing to gain from facing the undefeated Dubois (14-0, 13 KOs), then he certainly has nothing to gain in fighting Povetkin, right?
Povetkin is ranked LOWER than Dubois
Dubois is ranked HIGHER than Povetkin in the top 15 rankings at heavyweight with his #3 WBO & #7 WBC position. In contrast, Povetkin is ranked LOWER at #9 WBC, and he’s not ranked at all by the other three governing bodies.
So when Whyte says he has nothing to gain in fighting Dubois, you can spin that argument and apply it to Povetkin even more so.
It’s understandable why Whyte wouldn’t want to give the 6’5″ Dubois a shot at beating him, as it’s taken him five years to build himself up to this point to get a title shot after Anthony Joshua crushed him in seven rounds in 2015.
Whyte has been strategically making moves to avoid losing ever since, which has entailed NOT accepting heavyweight title eliminators against Luis Ortiz and Kubrat Pulev.
That’s why it’s taken Whyte this long to get in position for a title shot. Had he fought Pulev and Ortiz and beaten them, he’d have fought for a world title years ago.
When you look at the rankings, it looks odd that Whyte would say that fighting Dubois would do nothing for him.
When you’re talking about a guy ranked #3, and you’re saying that he brings nothing to the table, what are you really saying? It sounds like you’re saying that fighter is too dangerous to risk fighting. Isn’t that what it is?
Whyte thinks Warren is trying to distract
Whyte thinks Warren is attempting to distract the boxing fans from his mandated title shot against WBC heavyweight champion Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs), which is due by February 2021.
Dillian believes that Warren is trying to change the frame by talking up a fight between him and Dubois rather than keeping the discussion topic on Fury.
Warren has been quite clear about Fury’s intentions, saying that he’ll be defending his WBC title against Deontay Wilder next in December, and then moving forward to face IBF/WBA/WBO champion Anthony Joshua after that.
Frank says that Fury WON’T be fighting Whyte in 2021. He and Fury want the Joshua fight, not Whyte.
If Joshua and his promoter Eddie Hearn choose to resist the idea of fighting Fury, then they’ll get a lot of negative fallout from boxing fans if they elect to take on Whyte.
The fact of the matter is, fans don’t want to see Joshua fight Whyte again. They already watched AJ beat the stuffing out of Whyte in 2015, and it’s forlorn to set up a rematch with him now.
Whyte is another Dereck Chisora knockoff type of fighter, and it would be a massive mistake by Hearn to try and peddle a second fight between him and AJ in 2021.
Whyte, 32, is already risking his interim WBC heavyweight title and mandatory position facing Alexander Povetkin (35-2-1, 24 KOs) this Saturday night at his promoter Eddie Hearn’s childhood mansion in Brentwood, Essex.
Dillian (27-1, 18 KOs) is taking a risk as it is in facing the 40-year-old Povetkin in a fight that many boxing fans see as a 50-50 affair, which tells you a lot about Whyte’s talent.
Dillian resisting the idea of facing Daniel
“Frank needs to stay off the liquor, man,” said Whyte to London News Online about not wanting to take on the dangerous knockout artist Dubois. “He’s just trying to deviate from the Tyson Fury fight.
“Why would I fight Daniel Dubois when I’m mandatory for the WBC world title? Daniel brings nothing at all to the table,” said Whyte in sounding a lot like Tyson Fury in what he said about him recently.
Dubois has a future world heavyweight champion written all over him, but he needs more time to collect scalps from aging fighters like Whyte, Povetkin, and Joe Joyce before he eventually gets his crack at a world title.
Daniel is fighting this month against replacement opponent Ricardo Snijders (18-1, 8 KOs) on August 29 on BT Sport at the BT Sport Studio, Stratford in London, UK. Dubois will be defending his World Boxing Organisation International title.
If Whyte has no other options but to keep busy waiting for a title shot against the winner of Fury’s two fights with Anthony Joshua in 2021, then he’s got to stay busy fighting quality heavyweights. That’s where Dubois comes in.
Whyte needs popular opposition
He’s famous enough for Whyte to battle on Sky Box Office pay-per-view, and he must continue to face name guys. Whyte doesn’t want t return to the days where he was competing on regular Sky, and the only way to prevent that from happening is to face talented guys that the boxing public wants to see Dillian face.
Who else is Whyte going to face while he waits for the smoke to clear from the Joshua vs. Fury fights? Whyte can’t face 2nd tier opposition if he wants his contests to be televised on Sky Box Office PPV.
If Whyte is going to turn down fights against talented guys like Dubois, Sky may let him know that his matches won’t be shown. They’re not going to put Whyte vs. Tom Little or Dave Allen on Sky Box Office.
“There’s no reason for me to fight him,” Whyte said about Dubois. “If they strip him [Fury] I won’t need to fight no-one [to win the title] because I’m the interim [WBC heavyweight] champion.
“I’ve had enough fights to justify being a world champion.
“I don’t want that,” Dillian continued in not wanting to win his WBC title outside of the ring. “I want to fight Tyson Fury because he says he is the best heavyweight alive and to have ever walked the planet.”
Just based on the comments that Whyte is making about Dubois, it smells like fear. The difference between how Whyte talks about his opponents that he believes he can beat and the ones that he seems to have doubts about are like night and day.
Dillian doesn’t want Fury to be stripped
Dubois has been put in the same category as Luis Ortiz, a fighter that Whyte chose not to fight after the World Boxing Council ordered him to battle in a WBC title eliminator in 2018 and 2019. It wasn’t until the WBC ordered Whyte to face Oscar Rivas in a title eliminator that he finally agreed. What does that tell you?
Compared to Whyte’s last opponent, 39-year-old journeyman Mariusz Wach, Dubois is a far better fighter. Whyte had a lot of problems against Wach in needing to battle hard to defeat him by a grueling 10 round decision last December.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ku4AerX-XF4
It looks terrible to some that Whyte is facing another old guy in 40-year-old Povetkin after meeting 39-year-old Wach in his previous match.
Whyte wants to fight Fury for the WBC title rather than picking up the title outside of the ring if he vacates it or is stripped of the belt. It’s starting to look like that’s what’s going to happen. Fury wants to face Joshua, and he doesn’t waste time fighting Whyte with nothing to gain in making a simple title defense.