By Sean Jones: World Boxing Council state that the winner of this Saturday’s contest between WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder must defend against the winner of the October 30th fight between interim WBC champion Dillian Whyte and Otto Wallin.
This is Whyte’s big chance to finally get a title shot after ten years as a professional, but he’s got to defeat the very tough 6’6″ Wallin (22-1, 14 KOs) on October 30th at the O2 Arena in London, England. That’s not a walk in the part for the 33-year-old Whyte to be taking on the tough 30-year-old Wallin.
Dillian has a tough fight ahead of him
Whyte has more mileage than Wallin, and he was knocked last year by 40-year-old Alexander Povetkin.
While Dillian did avenge the defeat earlier this year with a stoppage victory but he arguably aided due to Povetkin having been weakened by a nasty COVID-19 illness late last year.
Wallin gave Fury the most brutal fight of his career in 2019 despite losing a 12 round decision. Fury and Wallin stood toe-to-toe, slugging it out at close range, and the big Swede gave him all he could handle.
Wallin did a far better job against Fury than Wilder did in either of their fights. Whyte will need to bring his A-game for him to beat Wallin because this guy is capable of getting the better of him in the trenches if need be.
The WBC has given the Fury vs. Wilder winner the option to face IBF/WBA/WBO champion Oleksandr Usyk for the undisputed championship, but that’s NOT possible with the Ukrainian fighter needing to face former champion Anthony Joshua in an immediate rematch in early 2022.
Joshua (24-2, 22 KOs) had a rematch clause for his fight against Usyk (19-0, 13 KOs) last month, so he’s reportedly already activated it.
AJ is in a good place going into the rematch with Usyk because he’s likely to have the home country advantage again, but he now knows how to beat the Ukrainian fighter.
Statement from WBC
“The WBC Board of Governors has reviewed the recent history in the Heavyweight Division. Considering the long inactivity in the division due to the pandemic, ongoing legal processes, and covid 19 infections, the WBC has ruled that the winner of this fight will have 30 days to secure a contract to unify the Heavyweight Division against WBO-IBF-WBA champion Oleksandr Usyk in search of an undisputed champion in the division. If no unification bout is secured within that time, the winner of Fury v. Wilder 3 must then fight next against the then reigning WBC Interim Heavyweight Champion [Whyte].”