WBC welcomes Dillian Whyte vs. Luis Ortiz in final eliminator

Boxingnews24.com

By Jim Dower: Dillian Whyte (24-1, 17 KOs) has the green light from the World Boxing Council president Mauricio Sulaiman to face former heavyweight world title challenger Luis ‘King Kong’ Ortiz (29-1, 25 KOs) in a final eliminator for the secondary mandatory sport behind Dominic Breazeale.

The WBC will be meeting to make a ruling on Whyte’s appeal to have him made the mandatory for Deontay Wilder and Breazeale moved out of the way. The WBC would very much like it if Whyte faces Ortiz while they decide on his appeal. Whyte being willing to follow Sulaiman’s preference for him to fight Ortiz would likely greatly help his situation in trying to unseat Breazeale as Wilder’s mandatory challenger. However, Whyte being resistant to the WBC’s idea of facing Ortiz will likely not help him. The WBC wants Whyte to fight Ortiz, not Dereck Chisora, who has been beaten eight times in his career and is a borderline journeyman fighter. It’s a bad look for Whyte to be showing acting like he has a sense of entitlement for the WBC mandatory spot without him following the directions the WBC has given him to face Ortiz.

The WBC wants Whyte to fight Ortiz, and he’s seemingly going in the opposite direction to face Chisora. That’s probably not going to give Whyte what he wants from the WBC. But if Whyte does face Ortiz,there’s a good chance he’ll lose. Ortiz has more power, more experience and more talent than him. Whyte is a blue collar fighter, who has a couple of controversial wins in the last two years of his career over Chisora and Joseph Parker since he signed on with Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn. Ortiz would have a very good chance of beating Whyte and ruining forever his dreams of a second fight with Joshua.

Whyte will need to face a very dangerous fighter in southpaw Ortiz if he wants to put himself in line for a world title shot against Wlder. Although Whyte has said recently that he’s interested in facing the 39-year-old Ortiz on December 22, his promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Sport is currently in negotiations with Dereck Chisora (29-8, 21 KOs) for a fight on that date on Sky Box Office PPV.

Ortiz is the Plan-B option if the negotiations for the Whyte vs. Chisora fight don’t pan out. Despite his bold talk, it’s highly improbable that Whyte will fight Ortiz next or anytime in the next year. Whyte’s promoter Eddie Hearn is chiefly talking about wanting him to fight Chisora, and then possibly Anthony Joshua.

Hearn throws Ortiz’s name in there as a potential opponent for Whyte on December 22, but he makes it clear that he’s the backup plan if the Whyte-Chisora fight doesn’t get made. Whyte would obviously gain my credibility from boxing fans if he were to face Ortiz and beat him than he would against 34-year-old Chisora, but that’s a much more dangerous fight for him and it would make him less money.

The British public are less familiar with Ortiz than they are Chisora. Ortiz would probably destroy Chisora if they were to fight, but that’s not what this is about. Whyte isn’t picking Chisora out because he’s the best contender. This is a business level fight for Whyte, who clearly picking Chisora because he gives him the biggest payday for the least amount of risk. Above all, Whyte doesn’t want to lose out on his rematch with Joshua in 2019.

All Whyte needs to do is face Joshua for him to get retirement money. Ortiz has the talent to destroy Whyte’s plans on fighting Joshua, as does Deontay Wilder. This is why it’s an impossible scenario to see Whyte sharing the ring with either Ortiz or Wilder before he faces Joshua. Ortiz is someone that Whyte won’t face until he’s looking well over-the-hill like Lucas ‘Big Daddy’ Browne and Robert Helenius both were when he fought them both.

Presently, Ortiz is not looking like a shot fighter, so he’s obviously not going to get a fight against Whyte. If Whyte loses to Joshua in 2019, his next move will be to try and go after Deontay Wilder for his WBC title, because Hearn isn’t going to let him get a third fight against AJ.

The British boxing fans aren’t going to put up with Hearn cramming repeated rematches between his Matchroom fighters Joshua and Whyte over and over. An immediate third fight between Whyte and Joshua only happens if the results are controversial or if there’s an upset with Dillian winning. Apart from that, Whyte is going to need to rebuild his career by going after a title shot against Wilder or the winner of the WBA ‘regular’ heavyweight title, which figures to be Matchroom fighter Jarrell ‘Big Baby’ Miller.

Whyte would obviously prefer a fight against Wilder, because it would bring him more fame than a victory over the 317 pound Miller (22-0-1 19 KOs). Whyte’s chance of getting a quick third fight against Joshua go up exponentially if he beats Wilder to take his WBC title than if he defeats Miller to win the WBA secondary heavyweight belt.

The one problem that Whyte has is the WBC isn’t going to order Wilder to make a mandatory defense against his top challenger. In other words, Whyte won’t get a title shot against Wilder unless he gives it to him out of kindness. Wilder won’t do that. He’s already given Whyte his marching orders for what he needs to do to get a world title shot against him by facing Ortiz, but he’s been resistant to that.

Whyte almost sounds like he’s got a sense of entitlement when he talks of the WBC needing to make him the mandatory to Wilder. Whyte believes the WBC should make him the mandatory right away because of his past wins in the last two years over Lucas Browne, Robert Helenius, Dereck Chisora and Joseph Parker. However, none of those fights were ordered by the WBC. Hearn made the fights on his own without the WBC telling him or Whyte that they were giving them the green light to one of those matches being an eliminator. The WBC did tell Whyte that he could face Ortiz in a secondary eliminator, which would put him being Breazeale as Wilder’s mandatory, but he’s not been willing to take the fight with the Cuban talent.

“We will welcome that [Whyte-Ortiz] and do a final elimination for the second mandatory, while we address Breazeale,” Sulaiman said to skysports.com. “I truly believe Dillian Whyte is very much deserving of the No 1 position where he is ranked. Dominic Breazeale is a mandatory contender for specific circumstances, which happened last year, and that’s the bottom line.”

Sulaiman has clearly spelled it out for Whyte for where he stands in the race to fight Wilder.

Despite being in the front of the line for a title shot against IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua for April 13 at Wembley Stadium, Whyte is challenging the WBC’s decision of making the 32-year-Breazeale the mandatory challenger to Wilder. Breazeale (19-1, 17 KOs) is rated at #4 with the WBC, and is well below Whyte at #1 with the organization. Breazeale has not fought in 11 months since earning the WBC mandatory spot in stopping Eric Molina in the 8th round last November.

Whyte wants the WBC to change remove Breazeale as their mandatory and place him in that spot instead. However, even if the WBC gave Whyte his wish, he likely wouldn’t choose to use it, as it would be a risky fight and he would possibly lose out on his April 13 fight against Joshua. Whyte has already lost to Joshua once in 2015, and the chances are high that he’ll lose again. A second loss for Whyte would erase his WBC mandatory spot, so it’s pointless for the WBC to make him the mandatory for Wilder if he’s not going to use it. Further, Sulaiman said this week that the WBC isn’t going to stand in the way of letting Joshua face the winner of the December 1 Wilder vs. Tyson Fury fight. What this means is the WBC isn’t going to order the Wilder-Fury winner to face their mandatory next, be it Breazeale or Whyte. As such, even if the WBC gave Whyte his wish of making him Wilder’s mandatory, he won’t be getting that fight until after he faces Joshua.