Wilder: I’ll fight Whyte if Hearn puts money in my pocket

Boxingnews24.com

By Juan Flores: WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder says he’ll gladly fight his guy Dillian Whyte if puts some money in his pocket, and stop talking about how he needs to raise his profile in order to fight Anthony Joshua.

Wilder says Hearn is starting to sound really greedy with the way he’s telling him that he needs to increase his popularity by fighting Whyte. Hearn is trying to get as much money as possible out of the Joshua-Wilder fight. One way he can do that is to build up Wilder by matching him against his fighter Whyte. Wilder thinks that’s stupid. He sees the fight between him and Joshua as being plenty big right now without him even needing to fight Whyte. Wilder sees Hearn’s greed being the reason why he’s pushing him to fight Whyte, and he doesn’t like what he’s seeing from him.

Hearn wants Wilder to fight Whyte on February 3. This is the date that Hearn wants, and he says he’s starting to feel more confident that Wilder will accept his new offer that he gives him.

“’I want you to beat this person before you can beat that person to build up your resume,’” said Wilder talking to Fighthype in discussing what Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn is saying about him needing to fight Whyte to become more popular. “I’d be better off and ready to fight Whyte if Hearn came out and said, ‘I want to put some money in your pocket. Here you go, and I want you to fight in front of my people.’ I’ll respect him more. But making it about how I need to raise my profile for Joshua to try and make the fight as big as possible, that’s bull-[expletive]]. That right there sounds like someone is getting a little greedy. Someone is trying to get the best out of it as much as they can out of it. That’s facts,” said Wilder.

Wilder wants $7 million to face Whyte. Unfortunately, Hearn says he’s not going to give him that much. Hearn said on Wednesday that he’ll bump up his original offer of $3 million, but it still won’t be anywhere near the $7 million that Wilder wants. You can argue that Wilder is pricing himself out by asking for $7 million for the Whyte fight, and he maybe he is. But Wilder stands to lose a great deal of money if he gets beaten by Whyte while following Hearn’s instructions in how to increase his profile.

Even if Wilder beats Whyte, he’s not going to get much credit for having done so due to Joshua having done the job before him. Joshua stopped Whyte in the 7th round in 2015. Whyte was injured at the time with a left shoulder injury, and he looked out of shape due to him not being able to train effectively going into the fight. Hearn got Whyte at the right moment to match him against Joshua. If he’d signed him when he was in shape and still healthy without a shoulder problem, the outcome might have been different.

Whyte will soon by Wilder’s mandatory challenger if he beats Robert Helenius on Saturday night at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales. Hearn could effortlessly force Wilder to take the fight with Whyte by telling him that he will never let him fight Joshua if he doesn’t take that fight first. If Wilder recognizes that he has no choice but to fight Whyte, then he’ll surely take it for whatever money is offered by Hearn. Whyte’s ranked #3 with the World Boxing Council. He’ll be fighting Helenius for the vacant WBC Silver heavyweight title.

“Wilder already beat Stiverne, so why should they do that again,” said Whyte to IFL TV.“He’ll probably knock him out this time. Stiverne hasn’t fought in 2 years, and he’s been the mandatory challenger for 2 years,” said Whyte.

Whyte isn’t happy that Stiverne was able to keep his mandatory status with the WBC for 2 years while being inactive since his win over Derric Rossy in 2015. Whyte went on to say that he should have been moved to the No.1 spot with the WBC a long time ago after his win over Dereck Chisora.

Whyte doesn’t understand why Wilder doesn’t take the $3 million offer from Hearn. He thinks Wilder is being unreasonable by not accepting the offer.

“He’s smoking crack,” said Whyte about Wilder wanting $7 million to fight him. “He’s got a crack problem. The man makes $800,000 to $900,000 for his fights. He’ll be lucky if he makes $1 million to fight Stiverne. We’re offering $3 ½ million plus American TV. I’m an easy fight. He keeps saying this, so why doesn’t he fight me? We’re trying to get to him, but there’s only so much we can do. That’s why I have a promoter. It’s up to him to try and make the moves for me. We’ve been working together for 3 years. Every fight is fight by fight. I’ve stayed with him out of loyalty. I can walk out anytime I want to, but I choose to stay out of loyalty,” said Whyte.

Whyte would have problems with Wilder’s height, reach, ranginess and his punching power if that fight comes off. It’s a bad match-up for Whyte, because he does better against guys that are smaller, and stationary. Whyte did not look good in his wins over Dave Allen, Chisora and Ian Lewison. Whyte showed in those fights that he’s not an upper echelon heavyweight. He’s one step above domestic level, but not quite world class in the true sense. At 29, Whyte is probably as good as he’ll ever be right no.

If Whyte was better, Hearn would be mentioning him all the time and smothering him with love. Hearn rarely talks about Whyte when he’s discussing heavyweights. The guys that Hearn talks about at the heavyweight level are Joshua, Wilder, Luis Ortiz, David Haye, Tony Bellew and Joseph Parker. Whyte isn’t mentioned.

Hearn is saying he’s 50 percent certain that Wilder will agree to take the fight with Whyte on February 3rd at the O2 Arena in London, England.

”I’d say 50 percent chance, but Dillian has got to beat Helenius on Saturday. It’s a tough fight. It’s huge,”said Hearn to IFL TV about Wilder maybe agreeing to fight Whyte.