Dillian Whyte is being punished for his decision to turn down a world heavyweight title shot against Anthony Joshua in 2019 according to his bitter rival Dereck Chisora.
Chisora has lost twice to Whyte in the past – a split decision in Manchester in 2016 and a knockout in late 2018 – and says the second of those two bouts came with the carrot of a title shot against AJ (23-1) for the winner. But he claims Whyte’s decision not to go through with that fight is now costing him dearly.
‘The Body Snatcher’ (27-1) is still even now waiting for that elusive world title shot, having been mandatory contender for the WBC title for what seems an eternity. He is supposed to get his shot by the end of February 2021 against the winner of Tyson Fury vs Deontay Wilder 3.
Chisora told IFL TV: “You had Dillian and me and the whole idea was, the winner between me and Dillian fights AJ in Wembley. And when Dillian won, he didn’t want the deal and he decided to fight somebody else. And they had to scrap the whole production – they’d put so much money into the production, hiring Wembley getting the promotion ready, and everything got scrapped.”
When Whyte turned down the AJ fight, Joshua ended up making his Stateside debut against Andy Ruiz Jr at Madison Square Garden in June – suffering a shock first professional defeat. Chisora believes this chain of events has angered many key boxing stakeholders, and claims Whyte is now paying a heavy price.
“They had to reseet now, ‘where are we gonna get another venue?’, they went to New York – who’s he gonna fight? – the other guy who failed the drug test (Jarrell ‘Big Baby’ Miller), who’s he gonna fight? the Mexican (Ruiz Jr). Everything is all messed up and this is all to do with Dillian, let’s all remember. And then AJ lost, guess who the blame is on now, the blame is on Dillian. If Dillian had taken that fight, the fight would have happened in London.
“Sky is pissed, DAZN is pissed, AJ is pissed, Eddie Hearn is pissed, they are all pissed off with Dillian. The WBC, the IBF – they are all pissed off with this guy because he didn’t play ball by fighting AJ in Wembley. ‘You know what, we’re gonna sort that guy out’, oh yeah, done.”
Whyte is now still waiting in the background for his title shot, and will meet dangerous Russian Alexander Povetkin (35-2-1) next at Matchroom Fight Camp on Saturday August 22 (live on Sky Sports Box Office).
Chisora went on: “Guess what, the rematch happened with Ruiz in Saudi. But now everybody is not pissed with Dillian any more because there is so much money in there now now that they forget about Dillian in the background – they don’t care any more. Guess where is Dillian now? That fight with Tyson Fury now with Deontay Wilder, but Dillian is still in the background. He’s still fighting everybody in the back but he’s not getting his shot at the title because he didn’t play ball, he didn’t take the fight he was supposed to take.
“The agreement was the winner fights AJ, that was the agreement. When they got to the table, Dillian said ‘nah, that’s a bad deal, I don’t want that deal so I’m not gonna fight AJ’. They were like: ‘we’re doomed, what are we gonna do?’.
“So I think they’re punishing him, Yeah, it’s a punishment.”
