By Charles Brun: Tyson Fury says he’s not surprised that Dillian Whyte has finally signed the contract for their fight on April 23rd because he wasn’t going to miss out on an opportunity to make “$8 million” for his guaranteed title shot at his WBC heavyweight title.
It’s going to be a hard sell for Top Rank to peddle Fury vs. Whyte fight on ESPN pay-per-view to the American boxing fans because they don’t view this as a PPV-worthy fight.
Whyte is viewed as a Dereck Chisora type of fighter who isn’t well known in the States.
In an example of Whyte’s talent, he was knocked out by 40-year-old Alexander Povetkin in 2020, and in his fight before that, he labored to beat 39-year-old Mariusz Wach by a 12 round decision. Whyte is a poor mandatory for Fury, and this is not a fight that will interest U.S boxing fans.
Suppose we’re talking about Whyte remaining silent during the entire promotion of the Fury fight due to his unhappiness with the 80/20 split. In that case, it will make it impossible to sell the match to American fans.
According to Dan Rafael, there’s still one area in the contract for the Fury-Whyte fight related to the UK tax withholding that the World Boxing Council must rule on.
Other than that, the fight is signed by Whyte and Fury, and the two will be getting it on in two months from now in London.
For whatever reason, be it mind games or issues with the contract, Whyte took up to the deadline on Monday before signing the contract to challenge Fury (31-0-1, 22 KOs) for his WBC title on April 23rd at the Wembley Stadium in London, England.
There had been rumors of Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn having Anthony Joshua or Dereck Chisora as Whyte’s backup plan, but that was craziness.
Whyte, 34, wouldn’t have been able to make the kind of money potentially fighting Joshua or Chisora compared to what he would get fighting Fury.
If Whyte beats Fury, he gets a payday of $11.3 million, which is well above the dough he’d make fighting journeyman ‘War’ Chisora (32-12, 23 KOs) or Joshua.
There’s no way that Joshua would have fought Whyte because it would mean that he would be walking away from his rematch with IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk, and he wasn’t about to do that.
The money and the potential for Joshua avenging his loss to Usyk were too big of an incentive for him not to go in that direction rather than face aging, complaining Whyte, who would have been a pure headache to negotiate with.
“Dillian Whyte signed his contract for eight million dollars. What a surprise,” said Tyson Fury on Twitter in reacting to Dillian Whyte signing his contract on Monday at the deadline.
“An absolute idiot. Should this even be a talking point?” Fury continued. “The man signs for the biggest payday that he’s going to ever get. My head hurts from all the mind games that Dillian Whyte has been playing on me.
“I don’t know if I’m coming or going. My training camp’s a mess. I’m going to absolutely bust Dillian Whyte like a cheap water balloon,” said Fury.
There’s a lot on the line for the Fury-Whyte fight for both fighters, as the winner will face the Joshua-Usyk 2 winner for the undisputed world title contest later this year for the IBF, WBA, WBC & WBO titles.
As far as the promotion of the Fury vs. Whyte fight, we don’t know if Dillian will help out in selling the contest, which will be shown on pay-per-view in the UK and the U.S.
Dillian might not help with the promotion because he is unhappy at being given an 80/20 split rather than his desired 55/45.
So if Whyte chooses not to help promote the fight, he’d be getting back at the promoters of the event, as the match-up might bring in far less money in PPV revenue without his help.
Fury is a great talker, but he’s not going to attract as much interest if he’s the only one selling the fight.
Also, if Whyte’s silence and recent track record for pulling out of an import fight on an injury it’s going to leave doubt in the minds of boxing fans whether the match will be taking place.
As such, fans aren’t going to want to purchase the Fury vs. Whyte fight if they’re concerned about Dillian pulling out for one reason or another.
