By Charles Brun: Dillian Whyte will be putting his career on the line in his rematch with Alexander Povetkin next month on November 21st on Sky Box Office in the UK. The two heavyweights will be fighting for the interim WBC title and the mandatory to champion Tyson Fury.
Whyte (27-2, 18 KOs) says he knows he can beat former WBA heavyweight champion Povetkin (36-2-1, 25 KOs), and he thinks he knows that as well.
Despite knocked out by Povetkin, Whyte is still a pay-per-view fighter on Sky Box Office. That could change if Whyte gets knocked out again.
Whyte, 32, isn’t coming into the rematch with the 41-year-old Povetkin nearly as good a position as their first fight on August 22. He was knocked unconscious by Povetkin in that fight at the Matchroom Boxing Fight Camp in Brentwood, Essex.
Should Whyte be allowed to fight so soon?
It’s a questionable decision on Whyte’s part to return to the ring after just three months to face the guy that knocked him out last time. It’s anyone’s guess why the British Boxing Board of Control is letting Whyte return so soon after the way he dispatched.
If Whyte is knocked out again by Povetkin, this will be a good learning lesson for fight promoters on what not to do. Whyte’s promoter Eddie Hearn is letting him gamble with his career by taking on Povetkin again.
Yeah, it’ll be a big payday if Whyte wins, as he’ll be the interim WBC heavyweight champion and the mandatory to champion Tyson Fury. But if Whyte gets knocked out again, it could be game over for him.
Dillian confident of knocking out Povetkin
“I think he’ll come prepared to go to war like he did last time,” Whyte said to IFL TV on Povetkin. “For me, I believe I can beat anyone, and I know I can beat Povetkin, and I think he knows it too.
“A lot of people laugh, but it’s heavyweight boxing. One punch changes everything. I know I can beat him, and I know I can knock him out as well. I lost the first one [against Povetkin], but I’ve had two great camps, and I will have two big fights.
“I’ve been fighting better fighters than some of the champions. I’m not scared. I just want to fight. It was just a minor mistake I made. Next time I’m going to be prepared and on the ball properly,” said Dillian.
For Whyte to continue calling it a small mistake of what happened to him in getting knocked out by Povetkin is troubling. That was a small mistake. It was a major mistake, and it was one that he was making throughout the fight.
It’s a miracle that Dillian lasted until the fifth round before Povetkin knocked him out because the Russian fighter had seen the flaw in his game from watching him fight.
Oscar Rivas, Joseph Parker, and Anthony Joshua all took advantage of Whyte’s bad habit of leaning forward. They all dropped Whyte like a bad habit, and he was lucky that he wasn’t knocked out in all three of those contests.
The problem Whyte has is that his whole game is based on him throwing hooks and body shots. If you take that away from him, he’s just an average heavyweight.
Whyte on Wilder firing Breland
“Fury has come out and said he’s ready to fight, but Wilder hasn’t said anything. He hasn’t defended himself,” Whyte said about the trilogy match between Fury and Wilder being off.
“I think Mark Breland was the only one in Deontay Wilder’s team that cared about him, and the only one that knows how to fight and the only one that’s boxed and that’s fought at a world championship level.
“Wilder is a coward. He’s looking for someone to blame, and unfortunately, Mark Breland was the only one that wasn’t sucking up.
“He’s getting rid of the weakest leak. I think it’s the wrong thing to do. He’s probably getting rid of the strongest link in his team,” said Whyte.
Former WBC heavyweight champion Wilder likely had other reasons for parting ways with Breland. We don’t know what was going on with Wilder and with his various trainers.
He’d been with Breland for a while, and he hadn’t improved much during all that time. Ideally, Wilder should have done was dump all his trainers and started with a clean slate with someone like Floyd Mayweather Jr or George Foreman.