By William Lloyd: Dillian Whyte says WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury has “no choice” but to fight him next unless he wants to toss his title in the bin and run away from a bigger payday than he got in his last fight against Deontay Wilder.
The World Boxing Council organization has already stated that Fury (31-0-1, 22 KOs) will need to defend against WBC interim champion Whyte (28-2, 19 KOs) next if he’s unable to negotiate an undisputed clash with IBF/WBA/WBO champion Oleksandr Usyk.
Since that fight isn’t happening due to Anthony Joshua activating his rematch clause to force a rematch with Usyk, Fury is now expected to fight Whyte.
Arum says Fury will fight Joyce if Whyte isn’t reasonable
“If Whyte is reasonable as far as his money, we’ll be happy to fight him. If not, we’ll fight Joe Joyce,” said promoter Bob Arum.
The WBC said this week that they couldn’t order the Fury-Whyte fight due to Whyte’s arbitration case against him, and they need to wait until that plays out before they can make a move.
In the meantime, Fury’s promoter Bob Arum has offered to set up a fight with Whyte without the match being ordered by the sanctioning body.
Arum says it would be a voluntary defense for Fury, and he’s ready to get the fight made as long as Whyte is reasonable with his purse requests.
Arum will likely be looking at an 80-20 or 75-25 split in Fury’s favor for the title defense, and NOT the 55-45 that Whyte and his promoter Eddie Hearn will be trying to get.
In an interview on Thursday, Arum said that the purse split for the Fury vs. Whyte fight would be done based on the percentages of the purses the two fighters have received in their last three contests.
Arum states that based on the vast difference between Fury and Whyte have made in their last three fights; the split should be 90-10 in Tyson’s favor. Arum says that can’t happen, though, so they’re looking at 80-20 as a starting point for Whyte’s split.
If Whyte and his promoter Eddie Hearn stubbornly resist and fail to give in to the purse split offered to them by Arum, Fury will defend against unbeaten talented Joe Joyce (13-0, 12 KOs) next.
Whyte says Fury has “no choice”
“He’s got no choice. What’s he going to do? Throw the belt in the bin and run away from more money than he got to fight Wilder?” said Dillian Whyte to Sky Sports on his view that WBC heavyweight champion Fury has no option but to defend against him next.
Of course, Fury has a choice in which direction he goes in for his next fight, and the WBC knows this. If they choose to order Fury to fight Whyte next, Top Rank will attempt to lower the purse split from 55-45 to the 80-20 that they asked the WBC to change it to this week.
If the WBC refuses to reduce the purse split to the 80-20 split that Top Rank wants, there’s the possibility Fury will vacate his title and move on to face the unbeaten 2016 Olympic silver medalist Joe Joyce next.
As far as U.S boxing fans go, it doesn’t make a difference to them if Fury faces Joyce instead of Whyte because the casuals have never heard of Dillian. To them, Joyce is just as good as Whyte because they have no idea who either of these fighters is.
“He [Fury] will try to fight Usyk because Usyk is a much easier fight for him,” said Whyte.
“Fury is thinking, ‘I’ve got so much more height than him, I can keep him at range. He’s not going to outbox me,'” said Whyte of Fury’s possible mindset for wanting to fight Usyk rather than Dillian.
“Whereas with me, he knows I’ve put him down before, and he knows I can put him down again. Of course, I’ll finish him,” Dillian said of Fury.
The comment Whyte made about putting Fury down refers to a sparring session they had many years ago in which Dillian reportedly dropped him.