Hearn wants Breazeale for Dillian Whyte’s April 20th fight

By Scott Gilfoid

Boxingnews24.com

Eddie Hearn says he’s going to make an offer for Dominic Breazeale (20-1, 18 KOs) to face Dillian Whyte (25-1, 18 KOs) in his next fight on April 20 on Sky Box Office in the UK.

It’s going to take a considerable offer from Hearn to get the 6’7″ Breazeale to risk losing his World Boxing Council mandatory position to face a regular contender in ‘The Body Snatcher’ Whyte. Hearn will likely try his best to entice Breazeale into taking that option. However, Breazeale would likely be put in a situation where he would find it very difficult to win the fight against Whyte, as the match would be taking place in the UK, and the referee would likely be from that area of the world.

Whyte’s last two fights have arguably gone his way due to the calls or non-calls by the referees for his fouling, as well as a bogus knockdown that Dillian was given credit for in his contest against Joseph Parker.

Breazeale, 33, is the ideal opponent for Whyte to face next, according to Hearn. He wants Breazeale so badly because it would put Whyte in position to face the winner of the Deontay Wilder vs. Tyson Fury 2 rematch.

Hearn’s ultimate goal is to have Whyte beat the winner of the Wilder-Fury II fight, and then from there he would match him up against IBF/WBA/WBO champion Anthony Joshua (22-0, 21 KOs) in a Matchroom Sport in house fight. That might not be a fight that would make the most money though. There would likely be more money if Hearn simply matched Joshua against the winner of the Wilder vs. Fury 2 fight rather than pushing for Whyte to beat the Wilder-Fury winner.

“We’re going to get a date hopefully in the next week,” Hearn said to IFL TV about Whyte’s next fight. “I think it’s [April 20] the perfect pay-per-view date, but obviously we got to get the right fight. We got to build the fight card. Breazeale, Ortiz or Povetkin,” Hearn said when asked who Whyte could possibly fight next.

It’s interesting that Hearn keeps throwing Luis Ortiz’s name around, as if Whyte would actually fight that guy. Ortiz is mentioned periodically by Hearn and Whyte, and yet they’ve never come close to making a fight against him. You can’t believe for a second that they’re going to want to use the talented Cuban southpaw as an opponent for Whyte’s April 20th fight, even though it would earn him a massive amount of respect in the boxing world by fans. Ortiz is too dangerous for a fighter like Whyte, so they’re likely going to swerve him like always. Name dropping Ortiz’s name won’t do much for Whyte, because few boxing fans believe they’ll ever make a fight against him. It’s the same with Alexander Povetkin. He almost knocked out Joshua last September. If Povetkin landed the same big right hand that hurt Joshua on the chin of Whyte, it’s hard to imagine him taking the shot without dropping for the 10 count.

“The big man has only lost once and he’s the mandatory for Deontay Wilder with the WBC, even though he’s ranked number-three and I’m number-one,” Whyte said about wanting to fight Breazeale. “I don’t understand that, but hopefully we can get to the bottom of this once and for all and I’ll beat him and Wilder will grow the stones and he’ll accept the fight.”

Whyte would like to fight Wilder, but he’s probably not going to get a chance. Breazeale has no reason on earth to fight Whyte. Why would he take that fight when he’s already the WBC mandatory? If Whyte was willing to come over to the U.S and fight Breazeale in his own backyard, he probably would take it if Hearn made it worthwhile for him to agree to the fight by giving him more money than what he’ll make fighting Wilder for his WBC title.

“In an ideal world, we would like Breazeale, because it would put him [Whyte] in as WBC mandatory for the winner of Fury and Wilder. There will be an offer to Breazeale. It’s just that whether Breazeale wants a fight like that or he says, ‘I’ll sit tight,’ but he [Whyte] is not willing to sit tight, because he can’t sit tight. He could be waiting for the WBO mandatory. We want to know the date, and we want to know the venue [for Whyte’s next fight by next week] so we can start working on. We’re already working on opponents,” Hearn said.

Hearn is complaining about wanting Breazeale for Whyte, but it’s not like he didn’t have that chance to make the fight two years ago.

It’s unlikely that Breazeale would take the fight with Whyte now, because he’s already the mandatory for Wilder. Whyte had the chance to fight Breazeale a long time ago for the WBC mandatory spot, but he didn’t take it. The WBC then called for Whyte to face Luis ‘King Kong’ Ortiz in a second mandatory, and he didn’t want to do that either. Now after all this time, Hearn and Whyte suddenly want Breazeale after they didn’t take the fight to earn the WBC mandatory spot to begin with. It’s kind of late in the game for them to be going after Breazeale now. They should have taken the fight with him two years ago instead of Whyte fighting the likes of Robert Helenius, Malcolm Tann, Dereck Chisora and Joseph Parker. It’s only now that Whyte and Hearn are starting to realize that they should have taken the Breazeale fight ages ago. That’s what happens when you take the soft path. You end up with nothing. Breazeale has no reason to help out Whyte and Hearn, because he’s already the WBC mandatory.R

Whyte says he turned down the first offer that was made by Matchroom for a fight against Anthony Joshua. Whyte says he didn’t get the first offer from Hearn until January 14, which didn’t allow him enough time to get ready for the April 13 fight. Besides that, the offer was too low, says Whyte. He complained that the second offer was one where he could walk away if he won, which wasn’t to their liking.