Promoter Eddie Hearn is insisting that Dillian Whyte be given his owed WBC heavyweight title shot against Tyson Fury ahead of Deontay Wilder, if Fury and Wilder can’t get their contractually-obligated third fight in by the end of this year.
From Sky Sports:
“The official date is before the end of February 2021. Obviously if Wilder-Fury takes place in December, maybe that gets pushed back a little bit. Great news for Dillian Whyte who has been pushing so hard, fully deserves this shot more than any fighter in boxing, forget the heavyweight division, but he does have business to attend to on August 22 against Alexander Povetkin. That makes that fight even more dangerous, but as far as we’re concerned Fury-Wilder must happen this year, and if it doesn’t we’re ready to go with Whyte against Fury, subject to him beating Povetkin in a couple of weeks’ time.”
As Hearn notes, Whyte (27-1, 18 KO) doesn’t have an easy one lined up on Aug. 22, as Povetkin (35-2-1, 24 KO) is a legitimate contender and has a genuine chance of winning that fight. It’s not some easy tune-up, it’s a real fight.
But if Fury (30-0-1, 21 KO) and Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KO) do not have their third fight in December as is the current, probably optimistic hope, Hearn and Whyte would have every reason to push for Whyte to get in there in early 2021 against Fury. That’s been the mandate. Things change, as we know, and boxing is weird, and we just don’t know month-to-month how anything is going to work in the world right now, so it’s not an open-and-shut sort of thing, but it’s an idea that makes some sense.
Of course all of this has to play out, and honestly there’s no guarantee that there would be money or a good place to do Fury-Whyte, either, that’s still a big and expensive fight, even if it’s not quite Fury-Wilder 3.
