It’s no secret that the WBC’s ‘silver’ champion and its #1 contender at heavyweight, Dillian Whyte, is not a happy camper. Whyte has seemingly been in position to contend for a world title for quite some time now, but still hasn’t gotten his shot — and he’s not thrilled with how the sanctioning body has been handling the situation.
Whyte tells Radio 1 Newsbeat that he believes the sanctioning body is trying to freeze him out of a title shot for as long as they can, hoping he gets old or knocked off in the meanwhile. The WBC obviously denies the claim, suggesting that Whyte allowed himself to be passed over by not accepting a final eliminator match against Luis Ortiz in 2018.
Not taking the fight didn’t hurt Whyte’s ranking with the sanctioning body, but it did cause them to look elsewhere. So this past February the WBC ordered Whyte to face Breazeale for their interim heavyweight title when everyone’s expectation was that WBC champion Deontay Wilder would be rematching Tyson Fury. That fight then fell apart at what felt like that last minute when Fury surprisingly announced that he signed a co-promotional deal Top Rank and would be fighting on ESPN.
So with Wilder-Fury a no-go, Whyte-Breazeale was basically unnecessary and the WBC ended up giving Breazeale the shot at Wilder as his mandatory challenger (by way of Breazeale beating Eric Molina in 2017 to earn that designation), despite Whyte being ranked above him.
“The WBC is a joke,” says Dillian. “Boxing is a funny sport, it makes no sense. These things only happen in boxing.
”It wouldn’t happen in the business world, it wouldn’t happen in normal life or in any other sport apart from boxing.
”It’s just boxing and you get on with it.”
Whyte alternatively had a chance to get a shot at some world titles by rematch Anthony Joshua, but he turned down that fight because he said the money wasn’t right. Specifically Whyte mentioned that Hearn can’t realistically offer Fury £15m for the AJ fight and then offer him only £4m, as he doesn’t believe Fury is nearly four times the draw he is.
Either way, Whyte says he believes he’ll still become world champion one way or another, and that when he finally gets a shot he’s just going to take out his years of frustration on whomever he faces.
Source: badlefthook.com
