Tyson Fury not interested in Dillian Whyte fight

By Scott Gilfoid

Boxingnews24.com

Eddie Hearn will need to start looking in another direction for an opponent for Dillian Whyte to fight in a WBC heavyweight title eliminator. Tyson Fury made it clear on Thursday that he has no interest in facing Whyte (25-1, 18 KOs) in a WBC title eliminator to become the mandatory for champion Deontay Wilder. Oh well, Whyte is right back where he started from.

This leaves Whyte in a situation where he still has no clear path to the WBC mandatory position that he badly wants.

Tyson points out that he’s the “lineal heavyweight champion of the world,” and he doesn’t like being told what to do and who to fight.

Whyte’s promoter Hearn recently got excited when Fury mentioned casually in an interview that he would possibly be interested in facing Whyte for the WBC Diamond heavyweight strap if the World Boxing. Instead of Hearn seeing Fury’s comments as him just kidding around, he took him seriously, and he wrote to the WBC to see if they would order the Fury-Whyte fight. It was a waste of time, as Fury obviously was just joking around with no intention of ever fighting Whyte in an eliminator. Not surprisingly, Fury sees himself as above having to take eliminators to get important fights.

“I don’t think it’s going to happen, to be honest,” said Fury when asked if he would face Whyte for in a WBC ordered eliminator fight. “Dillian Whyte for a mandatory spot, I’m NOT interested. I’m the lineal heavyweight champion of the world. As far as I’m concerned, Dillian Whyte is a bum. I’ll give him a knockout beating if he wants one,” Fury said.

Hearn should have recognized immediately that the 30-year-old Fury (27-0-1, 19 KOs) never had any intention of facing Whyte for the WBC interim heavyweight title or the Diamond strap. What’s obvious is Fury is just into taking tune-ups right now until he faces Wilder in a rematch 2020. Fury is in a holding pattern until the rematch. Whyte would be a needless fight for the 6’9″ Fury to take, because there would be a certain amount of risk involved.\

Whyte is like a slightly bigger version of Dereck Chisora. He’s the same kind of fighter. Fury would likely easily beat Whyte, but it would be a rough fight. Whyte likes to rough up his opponents, and he gets away with it. Fury might catch some elbows, get hit low, and wind up body slammed once or twice in the fight. It wouldn’t be an easy fight for Fury, but he would win it. There’s no real upside to taking the fight.

“I’m going to get passed Tom Schwarz first,” Fury said. “But as far as people telling me what to do, it doesn’t go down very well.”

Whyte will need to fight someone else in eliminator

The WBC will need to find another opponent for Whyte to face in a title eliminator. Since Whyte doesn’t want to give up on his goal of becoming Wilder’s mandatory, he’ll need to wait for the WBC to pick a contender in their top 15 rankings that is interested in facing him in a title eliminator.

It doesn’t work for Hearn to cherry pick guys for Whyte to face, and then telling the WBC afterwards that they need to make that an eliminator. Hearn tried that move with Whyte’s currently opponent Oscar Rivas, and it didn’t work. The WBC didn’t make the Whyte vs. Rivas fight an eliminator. As such, it’s another wasted fight for Whyte just like his wasted fights against ‘Lucas ‘Big Daddy’ Browne, Robert Helenius, Dereck Chisora and Joseph Parker.

If Whyte had taken the fight the WBC wanted him to take against Luis ‘King Kong’ Ortiz last year, there wouldn’t be any problems, as long as he beat him. The WBC wanted Whyte to face Ortiz in a title eliminator. Instead of taking that fight, Whyte fought 40-year-old Big Daddy Browne, Parker and Chisora. When Whyte made those moves, it was obvious that he wasn’t going to get the mandatory spot.

Hearn should have told Whyte right off the bat that he wasn’t going to get the WBC mandatory position by not fighting Ortiz. Oh well, Whyte did it his way, and he’s no closer to the WBC mandatory position than he was two years ago. Even if Whyte does earn the WBC mandatory spot, he’ll probably need to wait a couple of years for him to get a title shot against Wilder. It would be smarter for Whyte just to fight Joshua rather than burn up his career trying to get a title shot against Wilder.

Fury not taking Tom Schwarz lightly

“I don’t take anybody lightly. I’m training like a Trojan warrior for Tom Schwarz,” said Fury. “I’m a master of the sweet science. I’m not an average bum going in there looking for a swing knockout. I’m a calm, cool, collected technician, and you’ll see a masterclass performance [against Schwarz],” Fury said.

Fury can’t afford to take the 6’5″ Schwarz lightly, because if his punch resistance is no longer there, he’ll get stopped. Some boxing fans are speculating that Fury’s chin is gone since his fight with Wilder last December. Fury was knocked down twice by Deontay during the championship rounds. The second knockdown of the fight in the twelfth was especially nasty with Fury knocked cold for what appeared to be five seconds. The referee incredibly gave a count to the unconscious looking Fury.

It was strange, because fights are normally stopped on the spot when a fighter is as badly hurt as Fury was. There’s a lot of unknowns about whether Fury can still take a hard punch without him keeling over on his back the way he did against Wilder. Schwarz isn’t the biggest puncher in the world, but he might not need to be for him to knockout Fury. If Fury’s punch resistance is gone, he’ll be easy pickings for the young lion Schwarz to rip apart on June 15 in their fight in Las Vegas, Nevada.