By Jake Tiernan: Dillian Whyte says he’s now willing to accept Matchroom’s offer to fight Anthony Joshua on August 12th. Whyte says he’s been ghosted by Eddie Hearn, who hasn’t returned calls or emails in over a month.
Dillian (29-3, 19 KOs) says he only received an initial 3-line email from Hearn discussing the offer to fight Joshua in August. Since then, he’s there’s been nothing from Hearn.
Whyte needs to wake up and realize Hearn & Joshua are no longer interested in using him for the August 12th date. They would have made a counteroffer if they were eager to see him. There’s no point in complaining about what can’t be changed.
Hearn has had second thoughts about using the hard-hitting 35-year-old Whyte as a tune-up opponent for Joshua (25-3, 22 KOs) to prepare him for a December fight against former WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder for a match in Saudi Arabia.
There’s too much money at stake for Joshua with the clash against Wilder for him to be risking it against a big puncher like Dillian Whyte. It’s completely understandable why Eddie Hearn backed off from wanting to use the ‘Body Snatcher’ Whyte for warm-up purposes.
If Joshua is risking a payday in excess of $30 million for the Wilder clash, why would he risk it against Dillian? With a net worth estimated at $80 million, Joshua isn’t hurting for money, but he won’t risk increasing his massive fortune by fighting Whyte and potentially getting clipped by one of his big shots.
“We’ve had one three-line deal about the fight but no conversation at all. We’ve been trying to contact Eddie Hearn for one month. They’ve gone missing,” said Dillian Whyte to talkSPORT Boxing about his attempts at negotiating for an August 12th rematch with Anthony Joshua.
“I’m no warm-up fight for no one. I give them hell on the night. I’m about to get into the head of AJ and throw his rhythm off. I can draw him into a scrap. Just that alone makes me a massive danger for him. They don’t want to risk the Wilder fight,” said Whyte on why he’s likely been ghosted by Hearn for the Joshua rematch.
“This should be an easy fight to make. One hundred percent, of course, I would; I want to fight AJ and beat him,” said Whytee when asked if he would be willing to accept Hearn’s offer for the Joshua fight.
“I believe I can beat him this time around because this time, I’m ready to go in there and press him. We haven’t gotten that far into the fight to talk about money. There’s one offer that came in. We haven’t talked to Eddie Hearn in one month,” said Whyte.
