Haye says Whyte in denial about his knockout loss

By Charles Brun: David Haye feels that Dillian Whyte is in denial about his knockout loss to Alexander Povetkin with his belief that it was a lucky punch that KO’d him in the fifth round in on August 22.

Whyte’s attempts at making sense of what happened to him against Povetkin have concluded that it was a mere minor mistake on his part. That’s something that Haye doesn’t buy.

Haye points out that Povetkin (36-2-1, 25 KO) used the same left uppercut to knock out Carlos Takam in the tenth round in 2014.  Povetkin had also used that punch during his sparring sessions with Dereck Chisora.

In other words, luck had nothing to do with Povetkin, 41, knocking out Whyte (27-2, 18 KOs). The left hook that Povetkin throws is one of his primary weapons in his arsenal, and it’s troubling that Whyte wasn’t better prepared for that. Did Dillian not do his homework?

Dillian can’t accept why he was knocked out

Whyte and Povetkin will be fighting next month in a rematch on November 21st on Sky Sports Box Office. Dillian’s career hangs in the balance in that contest as if he loses once again to the Russian fighter, his days of fighting on pay-per-view could be at an end.

During an interview this week with IFL TV, Whyte minimized his defeat, saying that he had made a “minor mistake” against Povetkin, and he sees it as an easy thing for him to fix in their rematch.

“It’s a very dangerous fight and it’s a fight that I think Dillian doesn’t want to accept it was nothing other than a lucky punch,” said Haye to Sky Sports on Whyte’s rematch with Povetkin on November 21.

“He thought, ‘I was winning the fight’, which he was, ‘I had him knocked down twice in the fourth round and I was winning the fifth round until I got hit by one shot and that was it’.

“I don’t think that’s the mindset you need. You can’t say, ‘You won because it was an anomaly’. That left uppercut that he threw knocked out Carlos Takam, in a very even fight, in a very good toe-to-toe fight,” said Haye on Povetkin having used that same uppercut on Takam.

Whyte’s failure to admit that he didn’t do his homework in preparing for the Povetkin fight last time is indicative of what we’ve seen from him in the past.

Dillian was getting hit with the same left uppercut in his fights with Anthony Joshua, Joseph Parker, and Oscar Rivas. All three of those guys had Whyte on the deck in their fights. Was that a “minor mistake” as well for Whyte?