By Barry Holbrook: Eddie Hearn has thrown Dillian Whyte’s hat into the ring as a potential opponent for WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury to fight on December 5th in London, England.
Whyte’s November 21st opponent Alexander Povetkin came up ill with the COVID 19 virus on Tuesday, and he’s now out of their rematch.
Whyte would be backing into the fight with Fury on a sour note, having been knocked out in the fifth round by 41-year-old Povetkin in his last fight on August 22. Hearn obviously isn’t concerned about the perception that would give to the boxing public.
Does Whyte deserve a title shot against Fury?
When you have a recent loser being given a world title shot in their next fight, it looks incredibly bad and pathetic. For the fans that were brought up on the idea of being rewarded for achievement, Whyte would be getting the title shot against Fury on the back of failure.
It’s not sporting. It would be pure business for Fury to defend against the recently knocked out Whyte.
Although Dereck Chisora has already volunteered to replace Povetkin as Whyte’s opponent for November 21st, Hearn is offering Fury to have Dillian face him on December 5th.
“Dillian Whyte v Tyson Fury, anyone?” Hearn said on social media.
Unfortunately, there are several problems with Whyte getting a title shot against the WBC champion:
- Dillian is coming off of a 5th round knockout loss to Povetkin. He still hasn’t avenged his loss to Povetkin.
- Fury’s management has already sent a contract to Agit Kabayel to be his December 5th opponent.
- Whyte would likely want huge money to challenge Fury. You have to remember that Dillian turned out a monstrous payday in 2019 for a fight against IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua. You can only assume that Whyte would want a payday of more than $7 million as Fury’s opponent for December 5th
“Just to confirm, I’ve spoken to Dillian, we would accept that [Tyson Fury] fight,” said Matchroom Boxing boss Eddie Hearn on social media. Obviously, we’d have to talk about numbers, not looking to be greedy, but Whyte would love to fight Fury on Dec 5th. So if there’s an opportunity to do that, we’d love to do that.”
Looking at how risk-averse Fury is right now, he probably won’t want anything to do with Whyte. Just the fact that a contract offer was made to the bottom-ranked #15 WBC contender Agit Kabayel (20-0, 14 KOs) for Fury’s next fight on December 5th shows you where his mind is at.
Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs) isn’t looking to take any risks right now before he faces champion Anthony Joshua for the first of two fights in 2021.
If Fury chooses the easy path in taking on Kabayel, he’ll lose many boxing fans in the process. They’ll view him as a fighter that is no different than the other cherry-picking world champions in the sport.