Whyte thinks Deontay Wilder could lose to Dominic Breazeale

By Tim Royner

Boxingnews24.com

Dillian Whyte isn’t ruling out an upset win for mandatory challenger Dominic Breazeale in his fight against Deontay Wilder for his WBC heavyweight belt this Saturday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

Whyte, who is ranked with #1 with the World Boxing Council, states Wilder (40-0-1, 39 KOs) lacks boxing skills, and Breazeale can take a punch. Whyte (25-1, 18 KOs) sees the 6’7” Wilder as a flawed fighter in every department, and that’s why he’s not ruling out a victory for the 33-year-old Breazeale (20-1, 18 KOs). But with that said, Whyte does see Wilder getting the victory. He thinks that Breazeale will walk into one his big right hand shots, and get taken out. But if Breazeale does somehow get the victory, Whyte says he won’t be surprised in the least if that happens.

“Deontay Wilder, I wouldn’t want to be one of his handlers or his manager because they must have nightmares and headaches watching him fight all the time, because he’s not good at any one thing,” Whyte said to skysports.com. ”He’s not a good boxer. I wouldn’t be surprised if Breazeale beats him, because Breazeale seems to be tough and he seems like he can take a punch.”

It would be a pure shocker if Wilder does lose to Breazeale, because this is a guy that was soundly beaten by Anthony Joshua by a seventh round knockout three years ago on June 25, 2016 in London, England. Joshua handled Breazeale like he’d done with most of his over-matched his promoter Eddie Hearn had thrown into the ring for him to beat up. Breazeale showed that he was no better than any of them.. The only thing that Breazeale exhibited that was admirable in his loss to Joshua was his punch resistance. It took Joshua seven rounds of one-way punishment before he finally scored Breazeale out in the seventh round. Up until that time in Joshua’s career that lasted seven rounds against him was Whyte in their fight in December 2015. Other than a hard left hook that Whyte briefly stunned Joshua with in round two, he was no more competitive against him than Breazeale was. In some ways, Whyte looked poorer against Joshua than Breazeale, because he was so tired, weak and ineffective from the second round on.

Whyte predicts win for Wilder over Breazeale

“I just see Wilder keeping out of the way of him and drawing him onto punches and just tagging him, because Breazeale is not very good defensively,” Whyte said in predicting a victory for Wilder.

It’s an easy prediction to make for Whyte. He’s giving himself cover just in case his initial thoughts about Breazeale pulling off an upset fail to come true. By Whyte playing both sides of the fence, he won’t take as much flak afterwards with the boxing fans compared if he went out on the limb and made a prediction for the Wilder vs. Breazeale fight one way or another. It’s difficult to say for certain whether Whyte really believes Breazeale has a chance of beating Wilder. There’s clearly bad blood between Whyte and Wilder, because the American hasn’t volunteered to fight him. One reason why Wilder hasn’t agreed to fight Whyte is because his promoter Eddie Hearn originally told Wilder that he wanted him to take the fight so that he could increase his popularity enough to face Anthony Joshua. Wilder didn’t like the idea of him having to earn a fight against Joshua by first facing Whyte. Nevertheless, Wilder said he would face Whyte if Hearn gave him $7 million to take the fight. Hearn choose not to do that. In hindsight, it was a blown opportunity for Hearn, because if Whyte had beaten Wilder, he’d be the WBC champion right now, and a fight between him and Joshua would be huge in the UK.

Whyte is hoping WBC will make him immediate mandatory for Wilder-Breazeale winner

Whyte is still hoping that the World Boxing Council will decide to make him the mandatory for the winner of this Saturday’s Wilder vs. Breazeale fight if he beats his next opponent Oscar Rivas (26-0, 18 KOs) on July 20 on Sky Sports Box Office at the O2 Arena in London, England. Whyte chose not to take part in an official eliminator with the WBC when they ordered him to fight Luis Ortiz last year. Whyte fought instead Lucas Browne, Joseph Parker and Dereck Chisora. Parker is a good fighter, but the results of the fight were clouded due to a bad call in the second round from a head-butt that was ruled a knockdown for Whyte. The WBC wanted Whyte to fight Ortiz. It’s unclear why Whyte chose to fight Browne, Parker and Chisora instead. If the WBC rejects Whyte’s request to make him the immediate mandatory for the Wilder-Breazeale winner, then he’ll have to make a decision whether he wants to stick it out with his goal of becoming the mandatory for that belt. The WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman floated the idea of Whyte facing Tyson Fury in a WBC eliminator. Fury took to social media this week and said that he would face Whyte if the WBC puts their Diamond title up for grabs. This is a belt that the WBC puts up for fights involving elite level fighters. It’s usually superstar level fighters. Fury is coming off of a 12 round draw against Wilder last December. Fury didn’t fight like a superstar. He was spoiling most of the fight. Whyte hasn’t become a star. He’s got a following in the UK, but he’s fought mostly journeyman level guys like Chisora, Malcolm Tann, Dave Allen, Robert Helenius and an old 40-year-old Lucas Browne. When Whyte did step up a level against Joshua, he was knocked out in the seventh round. As such, Whyte is NOT an elite level fighter. He’s just a good basic heavyweight.

Wilder vs. Breazeale will be shown on Showtime World Championship Boxing this Saturday night on May 18. The fight card kicks off at 9:00 p.m. ET/6:00 p.m. PT. The co-feature bout is WBC featherweight champion Gary Russell Jr. defending against former world champion Kiko Martinez. That fight should be an interesting scrap from start to finish.