By Charles Brun: Frank Warren says WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury won’t be fighting his mandatory Dillian ‘The Body Snatcher’ Whyte in 2020 or 2021, seeing that he plans to take on IBF/WBA/WBO champ, Anthony Joshua.
Fury will likely need to vacate his WBC title if he doesn’t face Whyte by February of next year, considering that’s when the World Boxing Council president Mauricio Sulaiman determined that Whyte be given his mandated title shot.
It’ll be up to the WBC whether they want to strip or elevate Fury to ‘Franchise champion’ if he fails to vacate their title. It would be a good idea for the WBC not to alienate Fury by stripping him. However, he’s quite popular, and he could be around for another ten years.
Will the WBC give Fury the franchise tag?
It wouldn’t be in the WBC’s best interest to upset Fury, and he ignores their title for the remainder of his career. That’s why the best move for the WBC would be for them to volunteer to give Fury their Franchise tag if they don’t give him the clearance to step around Whyte for the arguably more critical indication match against Joshua.
The smart thing for the WBC to do would be to keep Fury happy by giving him the Franchise tag so that he can face Joshua without needing to bother facing Whyte.
Once Fury faces Joshua twice, then the winner of those two matches can turn their attention to Dillian if he’s still the WBC mandatory and decide whether to meet him or not.
In the meantime, it would be good for Whyte to get some solid victories under his belt against talented contenders that a little younger than the age bracket that he’s been targeting lately. In Whyte’s last fought, he defeated 39-year-old
If this were a perfect world, Warren would like the Joshua vs. Fury fight to have all four titles on the line, but he rightly understands that the boxing public won’t care if all the belts aren’t fought for. No one is going to lose interest in the Fury vs. Joshua fight if all four belts aren’t being fought over. If Fury loses his WBC title, these are the belts that will be on the line against Joshua:
- WBA
- WBO
- Ring Magazine
- Lineal title
That’s me than enough titles to validate the Joshua-Fury fight, and there’s no real need for the WBC belt if the sanctioning body doesn’t want to let Fury temporarily swerve the Dillian battle next year. Whyte can wait until 2022 to get his shot at the WBC belt.
Fans want Joshua vs. Fury
The fans want to see Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs) and Joshua (23-1, 21 KOs) get it on, and it’s a non-issue if one of the titles won’t be available at the time the two giant heavyweights meet in 2021. Only the tiny segment of the ultra-hardcore fans will make a big production about WBC mandatory Whyte (27-1, 18 KOs) being skipped over, and Fury likely needing to sacrifice his title.
“He ain’t fighting Whyte. That ain’t happening this year, and next year it ain’t gonna happen,” Warren said via Michael Benson. “He wants Joshua. Would we like to see the fight with all belts? Absolutely.
“But if a belt’s not on the line, who gives a s***? It’s the fight we want to see.”
Fury is choosing to ignore Whyte by taking the much bigger match against Joshua in early 2021 is a business decision, and that makes a world of sense. If the fans as a whole wanted Fury to fight Whyte, then that would be the direction he would go in, but that’s not the case.
Whyte isn’t famous enough for Fury to slow down his career to take that fight when he’s got the biggest match in the history of boxing staring him in the face against Joshua.
The fundamental problem that Fury, 31, would be having in facing #1 WBC Whyte would be that of motivation. With very boxing fans rating Dillian, it might be difficult for the 6’9″ Fury to stay mentally engaged for this fight. Also, Fury would be looking past the clash against Whyte towards the far more lucrative contest against Joshua.
Tyson needs to face Wilder this year
Fury and Wilder still don’t have a date yet for their trilogy fight, but Warren is saying that it needs to take place by December. Top Rank promoter Bob Arum wants to move the Fury vs. Wilder 3 fight to February 2021 to take advantage of crowds possibly returning by that point, but Warren has already ruled that put.
Fury wants to get the fight with Wilder over by December, and he doesn’t want to sit and wait for an additional two months before facing him next February.
Mariusz Wach. Whyte is now fighting 40-year-old Alexander Povetkin on August 22 at the Matchroom Fight Camp in Brentwood, Essex Is it by accident that Whyte is facing older fighters exclusively now or is that by design? Whatever the problem is, Whyte needs to start meeting younger opponents that are n their prime if he wants to be taken seriously by Fury and Joshua.
It would be suitable for Whyte to face these top contenders:
- Filip Hrgovic
- Daniel Dubois
- Joe Joyce
- Andy Ruiz Jr
- Luis Ortiz
- Michael Hunter
- Joseph Parker – a rematch
- Oleksandr Usyk
There will be Whyte fans that won’t be happy at their fighter being made to wait until 2022 or later for his title shot, but that’s just how it is. On the bright side, there’s an excellent chance the Fury will be elevated to Franchise champion if he doesn’t decide to vacate the title.
This means that Whyte can scrap it out with Luis Ortiz for the vacant WBC title. If Whyte wins the belt, he can use the strap as leverage to get a better deal against the winner of the two Fury vs. Joshua fights.
Whyte could soon be fighting for the title
If Fury is elevated to Franchise champion, then there’s no reason for him to bother with Whyte at all unless he’s feeling charitable. Whyte should be happy if Fury gives up his WBC title because he’d finally be able to battle for the belt after all this time.
Dillian has been saying that he wants to fight for the WBC strap for ages now so that he could be getting his shot at the belt in early 2021. The only thing is, it probably won’t be against Fury. It would be against the next available highly ranked contender in the WBC’s rankings.
This writer has a feeling that Whyte WON’T be happy battling Luis Ortiz or Andy Ruiz Jr for the vacant WBC title because neither of those guys will bring in the same amount of busy on Sky Box Office as it would be if Dillian were to face Joshua or Fury.
On top of that, Whyte would be taking a considerable risk facing Ruiz Jr or Ortiz because they both have significant talent and could beat him.
Tyson will already be dealing with that kind of fighter in his next match against former WBC heavyweight champion Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KOs).
It’s smart for Tyson to get about Whyte for the time being, as he would be looking to act in the role of a spoiler against him. Knowing that he has no shot at outboxing Fury, Whyte would be aiming for the fences in loading up on every punch he throws, hoping to get lucky. Fury doesn’t need that, at least not right now.