By Charles Brun: Dillian Whyte is continuing to rachet up the pressuring on former WBC heavyweight champion Deontay ‘Bronze Bomber’ Wilder for a summer fight in the United States.
Whyte (28-2, 19 KOs) picked up the interim WBC title last month with his fourth-round knockout win over Alexander Povetkin in Gibraltar, and now he wants to take on the #1 WBC rated contender Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KOs).
The timing of Whyte’s pursuit of a fight with Wilder is abysmal, though, as he’s still waiting on the results from arbitration for his contract with Tyson Fury, who chose not to fight him in an immediate rematch after beating him last year.
Wilder waiting for mediation to conclude
Deontay is waiting for the mediator to decide on whether Fury MUST face him again.
There’s a lot at stake for Wilder with the Fury fight mediation, and he’s going to wait for that process to play out. In the meantime, there are rumors that Wilder will retire if the arbitrator rules against him. It would be a real shame for a talent like Deontay to retire so soon in the height of his career, but you can understand why he would.
For a warrior like Wilder, who has tons of pride, he might not be happy unless he can get his hands on Fury again to right the wrongs from what happened in their fight last year.
There’s a lot of controversy with Fury’s gloves and the rabbit punches he was braining Wilder with. Also, Wilder had a right-arm injury for that fight, which took away his primary weapon.
Alabama native obviously isn’t going to give up on his chase for a trilogy match with Fury to accommodate the needy Whyte, 32, who is desperate to face a popular American heavyweight this summer in the U.S.
Whyte believes the public is demanding Wilder fight
“I think the public demand for the Wilder fight is already there,” Dillian said to Sky Sports. “There’s a lot of demand for it already.
“But fighting in America doesn’t hurt, and it does increase the profile. It would be good to get a big fight in America in the summer. I just want to get hold of him and hurt him.”
As far as I can tell, NOBODY in the U.S is demanding that Wilder fight Whyte. In fact, there’s no mention at all about a fight between Wilder and Whyte.
The only heavyweights the U.S boxing fans want to see Wilder fights are Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua, no one else. I guess Whyte doesn’t realize that his win over 41-year-old recently COVID-19 recovered Povetkin didn’t register on the Richter scale with the Americans.
It’s not surprising. Povetkin has never been a big name. His knockout losses to Anthony Joshua and Wladimir Klitschko took away whatever shred of credibility he had with many U.S boxing fans.
With Whyte’s chin issues, it might not be the smartest move for him to take on the 6’7″ sleeping giant.
Deontay hits too hard, and we already saw what 40-year-old Povetkin did to Whyte a year ago when he knocked him cold in the fifth round in Brentwood, Essex.
Does Whyte really want to risk having that happen to him again? You would think that Whyte already learned his lesson about taking risky fights while in the pole position for a world title shot against the WBC champion.
Dillian royally blew it last year when Povetkin knocked him out. If Whyte hadn’t taken that fight, he would have gotten his precious world title shot against WBC champion Tyson Fury in December.
Whyte ready to fight Deontay in his hometown
“I’ll fight Wilder in Alabama if that’s what is going to make him feel secure and safe enough to take the fight,” said Whyte about Wilder.
“If he wants, he can have the home judges, his hometown, whatever.”
You would think that if Wilder were going to fight anyone in his hometown of Alabama, it would be someone popular like Joshua or Fury.
Unfortunately, Whyte doesn’t meet the criteria of being a popular fighter. As such, it would be a complete waste of Deontay’s time to entertain the idea of bringing Dillian over to the U.S to fight this summer in Alabama.
Whyte needs someone from the U.S, but unfortunately, there are not many popular guys for him to fight.
If Whyte takes a look at the WBC’s rankings, he’ll note that Luis ‘King Kong’ Ortiz (32-2, 27 KOs) is ranked #3, and he would likely jump at the chance to fight him for both his mandatory status and his interim WBC heavyweight strap.
Ortiz, 42, is in the age range that Whyte has been fighting lately, with his last two opponents, Povetkin and Mariusz Wach, in their 40s. The talented southpaw Ortiz lives in Miami, Florida, so I guess that would be close enough to consider him a U.S fighter.
Of course, if Whyte still doesn’t fancy the match-up with Ortiz, one would certainly understand that. I mean, Whyte has already twice had opportunities to fight the dangerous Cuban talent and chose not to.
That’s why it took Whyte so long to become the WBC mandatory challenger. He didn’t want to fight King Kong Ortiz in a WBC-ordered title eliminator, for whatever reason.
Whyte will be meeting with Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie hearn this week to decide on what his options are or his next fight in the summer.
Dillian could return to the UK if he can’t get an American opponent, but that might require that crowds be allowed back in. Whyte isn’t going to fight in front of an empty arena for his next fight in the UK.
These would be good options for Whyte:
- Luis Ortiz
- Filip Hrgovic
- Michael Hunter
- Joseph Parker
- Frank Sanchez
- Andy Ruiz Jr
- Tony Yoka
- Joe Joyce
- Otto Wallin
- Daniel Dubois
- Michael Coffie
- Hughie Fury
Some of the heavyweights might beat Whyte, but if he believes he’s the #1 fighter in the division, he shouldn’t have any problems fighting one of them. I mean, is it too much to ask for Whyte to take on Joyce, Dubois, King Kong Ortiz or Hrgovic this summer?