Tyson Fury may be the self-styled king of mind games but it matters not to Dillian Whyte – he knows that whatever happens, the two will fight in a boxing ring on Saturday night.
‘The Body Snatcher’, now 34 years old, finally gets his shot a world heavyweight title when he challenges for Fury’s WBC, Ring magazine and lineal straps at Wembley Stadium.
Whyte (28-2) knows that once the talking is over there will be just the two of them inside the ropes with all those baubles on the line. It’s a moment he has waited a long time for.
Whyte on Fury ‘mind games’
He told BT Sport Boxing: Tyson Fury says a lot of s***, his mouth’s like a toilet – just keeps on flushing and flushing and flushing, that’s Tyson Fury. I don’t really care about what he says or does.
“Me and him gonna have a fight regardless, so I don’t care what he says, I don’t care about mind games. I’m a warrior, if he wants – it anytime, anywhere – I’m down, I don’t give a f*** about this, that or the other.
“Everybody says Tyson Fury’s king at mind games, I don’t care. If he gets in my head he’s gonna find a lot of disturbance in there so don’t give a f***.”
Dillian has history with Tyson
Whyte and Fury spent a lot of time together in years past when Dillian was brought in by Tyson’s uncle Peter to help sharpen up his skillset. The Brixton man’s views on ‘The Gypsy King’ have changed now though.
“I was cool with the guy, I never had no beef with him. But then all of a sudden you know what Tyson’s like, he starts going on and shouting and screaming which I don’t understand. You’re a giant, you don’t need to go around shouting and screaming – you’re a big guy, just be yourself. But he likes screaming – him and his Dad – I don’t get why to be honest.”
The troubles and traumas Whyte went through in his early life have been well documented, but he is of the firm view that it is not where you start, it is where you finish. He recounted one particular story to prove that he wasn’t born with a silver boxing spoon in his mouth. He literally did in the hardest of ways.
Doing it the hard way
“I’m used to hardship, I don’t like to talk about too my story too much because there’s a lot of unpleasantness and darkness in my story. I just focus on the positive and get on with it. It’s been one hell of a road, a lot of ups and downs and struggles.
“I remember one fight where I had to pay the opponent £1700 and I had £1500, so I needed to find the other £200 and I was fighting at like 9 o’clock. At 8 o’clock I was trying to sell tickets, saying ‘I’ll give you three tickets for 60 quid’.
“I never come from a sporting background – my parents couldn’t afford to take me to the sports club as a kid, we were broke. I never had no sporting background – I just got lucky man.”
