By Charles Brun: Michael Hunter is ready to take on Dillian ‘The Body Snatcher’ Whyte and rip his WBC interim heavyweight strap from him after he finishes his business tonight against the always tough Mike Wilson at Madison Square Garden in New York.

At this point in Whyte’s career, he earned the WBC mandatory spot. He didn’t want to risk it by fighting Hunter, particularly about what happened to him last year when Alexander Povetkin shockingly knocked him out in the fifth round.

Has Whyte lost his nerve?

That loss may have taken away Whyte’s desire to take risks with his career by fighting the best, which is why he appears to be sitting inactive like a mother hen, not wanting to risk another loss. At the same time, he waits for a possible title shot against whoever holds the WBC heavyweight title in 2022.

The thing is, it’s unclear whether Whyte is even the WBC mandatory because he got knocked out last year by Povetkin.

If Whyte lost the WBC mandatory, he’s going to have to agree to another WBC title eliminator against whoever the sanctioning body assigns as his opponent. That might be #2 Andy Ruiz Jr. or #3 Luis ‘King Kong’ Ortiz.

Unfortunately, it can’t be #1 WBC Deontay Wilder because he’s already fighting for a world title against Tyson Fury on October 9th or whenever the big ‘Gypsy King’ can make it through training camp to be ready to face him.

Hunter wants to face Whyte after defeating the 38-year-old Mike Wilson (21-1, 10 KOs) tonight in their headliner on Triller Fight Club and FITE.TV at Madison Square Garden in New York.

It annoys #6 WBC, #6 WBA, #6 WBOHunter (19-1-1, 13 KOs) that fighters like Whyte (28-2, 19 KOs) use the excuse that they don’t know he is as their rationale for not needing to fight him.

So instead of Whyte fighting the 33-year-old Hunter to risk his ranking in the division, we’ve seen Whyte fighting older heavyweights like 41-year-old Alexander Povetkin and 41-year-old Mariusz Wach in his last three fights.

The last time Whyte fought a younger fighter was when he scraped by Oscar Rivas two years ago, being forced to get up off the deck in the ninth round to come back and win a 12 round unanimous decision in London England.

That was an odd fight in which Rivas had Whyte hurt in the 12th round from a body shot, but the referee mistakenly thought it was a low blow and gave Dillian time to recover. That may have saved Whyte from being knocked out.

“Absolutely. I don’t know if it will happen. He’s [Whyte]one of the guys who has the excuse: ‘Who is Michael Hunter?‘ They act like they don’t know who I am,” said Hunter to Sky Sports on him wanting to face WBC interim heavyweight champion Dillian Whyte.

“[I would fight Whyte] or even an up-and-coming guy. Hopefully, we can press these guys to getting me in the ring with them.”

“I am getting my name out – this is one of the stigmas that other fighters try to nitpick. I will check that box,” Hunter said.

Hunter has been BAD luck for Matchroom Boxing in recent years, beating Martin Bakole, Sergey Kuzmin and fighting Povetkin to a controversial draw.

You can’t blame Eddie Hearn if he wants nothing to do with Hunter at this point because he could ruin the party by taking Whyte’s scalp if he makes the mistake of agreeing to that fight.

Whyte avenged his loss to Povetkin last March, knocking him out in the fourth round in Gibraltar. However, this wasn’t the same healthy Povetkin that had beaten Dillian a year earlier.

Povetkin had a bad case of COVID-19 in late 2020, which messed him up badly. When Povetkin did come back to face Whyte in March of this year, he looked like he’d aged ten years.

COVID-19 seemed to take the best part of Povetkin out of him, leaving him a shell that Whyte easily dealt with.

Had this been the same Povetkin from 2020, it’s fair to say he would have beaten Whyte a second time because he was asking to get hit with another left uppercut with the way he was swinging for the fences.