By Charles Brun: Tyson Fury says he knows that Eddie Hearn has been trying to protect Anthony Joshua from him by using Dillian Whyte as roadblock won’t work. Whyte (27-2, 18 K.O.s) was knocked out in five rounds by Alexander Povetkin last Saturday night, so it’s no longer going to work for Hearn to use the WBC to position him.
Before being knocked cold by 40-year-old Povetkin (36-2-1, 25 K.O.s) in the 5th round last Saturday night at the Matchroom Boxing Fight Camp, Whyte had been the WBC mandatory for Fury.
Hearn and Whyte had been applying pressure on the WBC to force a title shot against Fury by February 2021, and there was talk of him being stripped of his title if he didn’t defend against him.
Hearn can’t use Whyte to protect Joshua
Fury believes that Hearn’s rationale for wanting him to fact Dillian was to protect the highly popular IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Joshua (23-1, 21 K.O.s). He is a big money-maker for Matchroom. As such, if Whyte were to beat Fury, he would project Joshua from a potential threat to his career-earnings.
If Joshua loses to Fury as badly as Deontay Wilder did, he could take a significant hit on his ability to continue to bring in the gravy [money] like he’s been doing.
“I know Eddie Hearn and Matchroom was trying to protect Joshua by not letting him fight me and trying to put a hurdle in the way with Dillian Whyte, and ‘if you don’t fight Dillian Whyte, you and Joshua won’t fight,'” said Fury to BT Sports Boxing.
“The fact of the matter is, I don’t need any of their fighters. They need me. I’m the only undefeated heavyweight world champion that’s left out there. All the rest have fallen by the wayside, been chinned, and battered,” said ‘The Gypsy King’ Tyson.
Fury isn’t the only one that believes that Hearn has been using Whyte as a roadblock to protect Joshua. Former WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder saw it the same way.
Deontay had the same problem
When the talented 6’7″ Deontay (42-1-1, 41 K.O.s) held the World Boxing Council strap, Hearn was working hard trying to have him face Whyte rather than Joshua.
It seemed painfully obvious to Deontay that Hearn was positioning Whyte between him and A.J., who the Alabama native anted to get at.
As soon as Wilder lost his WBC title to the 6’9″ Fury last February, then Hearn started the same thing in positioning Whyte between ‘The Gypsy King’ and Joshua.
It was the same situation as we had seen with Hearn working hard to get Whyte a fight against Deontay, talking about how he’d been the WBC mandatory challenger for 1000 days.
The fact is, Whyte had only been the WBC mandatory challenger since last year in July when he beat Oscar Rivas by a 12 round unanimous decision in the WBC ordered heavyweight title eliminator. One thousand days stuff that Hearn has been talking about was how long Dillian had been ranked at the #1 spot by the WBC.
“I’m ruling the roost. So I don’t need any of them,” Fury said about the other heavyweights. “As a fan, you want the biggest fight possible. So the biggest fight out there is me and Joshua.
“Let’s make it happen. Stop running away and stop making excuses. They’ve got nothing to lose. They’ve already been knocked out,” said Fury.
A.J. & Fury have interim fights
Nothing is standing in the way of Fury and Joshua fighting in the first half of next year other than Deontay and Kubrat Pulev. Fury (30-0-1, 21 K.O.s) and Wilder are expected to go to war on December 19th in their trilogy match.
Joshua needs to defend against 39-year-old Pulev (28-1, 14 K.O.s) this year or whenever Hearn has been taking his sweet time in putting the Joshua-Pulev contest together, seeing that he wants to stage it in front of a live audience.
Assuming Fury and A.J. win their interim fights, there’s nothing that can block them from fighting in the first six months of 2021. The only thing that Charles Brun can see stopping Joshua-Fury from happening early next year is if Whyte defeats Povetkin in December in their rematch.
If Whyte wins that fight, it’s predictable that Hearn will get on top of his soapbox and start bellowing about how Dillian deserves his mandated title shot against WBC champ Fury.
A victory for Whyte over Povetkin will make him the WBC mandatory once again, and it’s utterly predictable that Hearn will start bellyaching about how he should be the one that faces Fury next in 2021.
If Hearn starts hammering the WBC to have them force Whyte’s title shot against Fury, it’s likely the sanctioning body will bend to his will and order the Fury-Whyte fight.
At that point, Fury will need to consider whether it’s worth it to hold onto the WBC belt. If the title is an excuse for Hearn to consistently position Whyte in front of Fury’s path to get to Joshua, then the WBC belt might become expendable.
Tyson focused on Deontay
If Joshua chooses not to fight Fury if he vacates his WBC title, then that would say a lot about him. For Joshua not to face Fury if he abandons his WBC title, it would suggest that he wants no part of fighting him.
Fury giving up the WBC title would be an excuse for Joshua to use to tell the fans why he’s not fighting him.
“I’m the one that has something to lose. For me, I just want to concentrate on Deontay Wilder, the most dangerous man on the planet, and get past that first,” said Fury.
“I know they’re looking at Las Vegas, Singapour, Saudi Arabia, and China,” said Fury when asked where his fight with Wilder will be taking place.
More than likely, Fury vs. Wilder 3 will end up in the United States, as long as crowds are allowed back in Fury and his promoter Frank Warren may need to be willing to wait until February 2021 before the trilogy match can be made.
It’s highly unlikely that fans will be allowed back into sporting events in the U.S. or the U.K. by December.
Fury’s co-promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank stays he’s got the possibility of staging the Fury-Wilder III fight outside of the U.S. in February of next year.
As long as Fury is willing to wait, they’ll be able to make a lot of money fighting Wilder. It makes sense. Why give up all that green by battling inside of an empty studio?
Fury predicts that Dubois KOs Whyte
“That’s not happening anymore, is it?” said Fury on a fight between Whyte and Daniel Dubois. “I see Daniel Dubois knocking him unconscious as Povetkin did. Too young, too big, too strong.”
There’s no possibility at all that Hearn would allow Whyte to face the unbeaten upstart Daniel Dubois (14-0, 13 K.O.s) at this point, especially if Dillian loses to Povetkin again.
I don’t know what Hearn will do with Whyte if he gets sparked out by Povetkin for a second time next December? Does Hearn keep Whyte on as one of his Matchroom stable fighters, or does he release him and wish him well with his career?
If Hearn has Whyte walk the plank by matching him against Dubois, it would be a cash-out situation with Dillian likely losing and then being sent into retirement by the 22-yar-old.