Dillian Whyte doesn’t care what you think about his chances of beating Tyson Fury as the WBC heavyweight champion this Saturday in London’s Wembley Stadium.
“I’ve been counted out by people close to me – family members and friends, the teachers at school and neighbors – so, some guy on the internet or some journalist talking smack about me, it doesn’t mean nothing to me,” said Whyte on a recent media teleconference. “This is not new territory to me.”
“It’s been a long time coming,” Whyte said. “We’ve worked hard. We fought top fighters and kept risking the position we was in, and even when it was mandatory, the fight didn’t happen. We actually had to go through a legal process to get Tyson Fury to fight us after he said he would fight us after he beat Wilder to become champion. Unfortunately, we had to push a legal angle and we finally got the fight and here we are.”
“I’m up against a big guy,” Whyte said. “It’s a hard fight against an undefeated champion, but I feel good, and I believe that I’ll beat him. I’m very confident in beating him, so it will be good to shut a few people up.”
Some won’t shut up about the first Povetkin fight. Yes, Whyte evened the score with the Russian seven months after their first bout, stopping him in four rounds. But being on the receiving end of a devastating knockout the first time around had many wondering if Whyte was on the tail end of a career filled with highs like his wins over Dereck Chisora and Joseph Parker, as well as the lows of a two-year drug suspension from 2012 to 2014, injuries and the loss to Joshua.
“I persist and keep pushing,” he said. “All I do is grind.”
“It’s very hard to clap with one hand,” Whyte laughs. “You need two hands to clap. This is business. It’s not the Tyson Fury show. This fight is sold out because of me and Tyson Fury. We’re both in the fight together, so some things need to be done correctly.”
“I’m a guy, as a kid – no future, no education, no family,” he said. “I’m a survivor. I’m a kid who’s been in the streets, I’ve been in the streets since I was a child. For someone like me who’s come from nothing, never no sporting background, never had no backing, no support, to become heavyweight champion of the world, to me, that’s true inspiration. Real inspiration.”
“I know what I am, I know what I bring, and I got a lot of pain and frustration to take out on someone, and it looks like it’s gonna be Tyson Fury, so let’s go.”
