By Charles Brun: Dillian ‘The Body Snatcher’ Whyte wants his March 6th rematch with Alexander Povetkin to have a large crowd, according to his promoter Eddie Hearn, and he’s looking at staging it outside of the UK.
Hearn is currently looking at these three potential locations for the Povetkin vs. Whyte 2 rematch:
- Gibraltar
- Monaco
- Middle East
Is Whyte kidding himself?
Could it be that the 32-year-old Whyte is overestimating the amount of interest in his fight against 41-year-old Povetkin (36-2-1, 25 KOs)? If Whyte is having delusions of grandeur, it’s not going to help him.
Hearn needs to sit Whyte down and let him know that he’s not popular enough to stage a fight between him in a foreign country
It’s difficult enough for Hearn to scour the world to find a foreign country willing to pay a tremendous site fee to stage the Anthony Joshua vs. Tyson Fury fight.
Asking Hearn to look for a foreign country to stage the rematch between Povetkin and Whyte seems doomed. It’s unclear what Whyte’s rationale is to take his fight with Povetkin out of the UK.
Is it the extra money Whyte will get, or does he feel that he needs cheering from fans to win? Hopefully, Whyte isn’t using the lack of fans for his previous fight against Povetkin as an excuse for his defeat. That would be pathetic.
Whyte needs to accept that he wasn’t good enough to beat Povetkin last August, and the fans aren’t to change anything for the rematch. If Whyte doesn’t learn how to block Povetkin’s uppercuts, he’s going to get knocked out again, end of the story.
Whyte vowing to hurt Povetkin
“Just get in there, have a fight, let’s go toe to toe, and let’s have it,” said Whyte to Sky Sports News in talking about his hopes Povetkin will brawl with him. “I just want to get in there and smash his face in, to be honest,
“I’ve always got a spiteful, nasty streak, but if someone is being respectful it’s difficult to be a certain way. Now he’s showing his true colors and he will pay for it. I am going to hurt him.”
“It’s hard to be super aggressive, if someone is being cool, but that was part of his game-plan. Now I know that’s part of his game-plan,” said Whyte.
As you can see, Whyte is saying that he was lulled into being less aggressive for his first fight by Povetkin due to his nice-guy persona. This time, Whyte isn’t buying it, as he feels he’s seen the Russian fighter’s true colors, and he wants to batter him from start to finish.
Again, this sounds like Whyte isn’t willing to fully accept what happened to him last August when he was knocked cold in the fifth round by Alexander.
Rather than owning the loss, Whyte is blaming the defeat on him being deceived by Povetkin. Charles Brun hates to say it, but this is just another example of Whyte failing to take responsibility for his crushing loss.