Whyte being groomed for Joshua rematch

Whyte being groomed for Joshua rematch

Whyte being groomed for Joshua rematch

Whyte being groomed for Joshua rematch

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Promoter Eddie Hearn is looking to build up Dillian Whyte starting this Saturday in his fight with Malcolm Tann for an eventual big money rematch with IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua. Whyte (20-1, 15 KOs) is only a handful of fights away from rematch with the unbeaten Joshua (19-0, 19 KOs) if he keeps winning.

Hearn has Whyte in a showcase fight this Saturday night on August 19 against 38-year-old Tann (24-5, 13 KOs) on the Terence Crawford vs. Julius Indongo card at the Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln, New York. The Whyte-Tann fight will be streamed on the ESPN App. in the U.S. The fight won’t be televised on ESPN’s main portion of the card, however, which means few casual boxing fans will see the fight in the U.S.

If Whyte, 29, can beat the 6’6” Tann, then Hearn hopes to get him a title shot against the 6’7” WBC heavyweight champion Deontay “Bronze Bomber” Wilder if he gets past his #1 WBC mandatory Bermane Stiverne. A fight between Whyte and Wilder would likely need to take place in early 2018. Wilder-Stiverne still isn’t even scheduled yet. It could take ages for the fight to be scheduled. Hopefully, Wilder doesn’t suffer another right hand injury against Stiverne like he did in the previous time he fought him in January 2015. Wilder won that fight by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision, but he suffered a broken hand early on.

Joshua knocked Whyte out in the 7th round on December 12, 2015. Whyte fought well for 2 rounds until a shoulder and conditioning problem led to him getting dominated by the bigger Joshua. Whyte has had shoulder surgery to repair his left shoulder, but he’s not shown any power in that arm ever since. He’s not knocking guys out with his left hand like he used to. Whyte still thinks he’s got what it takes to deal Joshua his first defeat. I wonder if he really believes that.

“Fight him again it will be a different story,” said Whyte to skysports.com. “He’s shown that he’s vulnerable when he gets put under pressure. You have to keep the pressure on him. It makes it a lot easier being there once and doing it on the big stage now. I believe I’m ready now for these big fights.”

Nah, I think Whyte loses to Joshua no matter how many times he fights him. Whyte lacks the punching power to beat Joshua. If Whyte’s left hand was still the dangerous weapon that it was when he first turned pro, then I think he would knockout Joshua. Unfortunately, I don’t see the power there anymore in Whyte’s left hand ever since his shoulder surgery. He doesn’t have right hand power, and even his jab looks weak nowadays. I don’t see Whyte beating Joshua. I do think Whyte will beat journeyman Malcolm Tann on Saturday. Whyte can do that at least, but that’s about it unfortunately.

If Hearn can’t get Whyte a title shot against Deontay Wilder, then I’d like to see him at least put him in with Dominic Breazeale. I don’t think Hearn is going to take any risks with Whyte before he puts him in a world title fight against Wilder or Joshua. Yeah, it’s a risk for Whyte to be fighting for a world title, but the money is so good that it’s worth it. I’m talking about Hearn risking Whyte against some of the quality contenders in the division in order to raise his profile.

Whyte is coming off of a controversial 12 round split decision victory over Dereck Chisora last December in a fight that he appeared to lose in my opinion. Instead of putting Whyte back in the ring with Chisora, Hearn is putting him in with a journeyman fighter in Malcolm Tann. What does that tell you? It suggests to me that Hearn is going to play it safe with Whyte to make sure he doesn’t get beaten before he gets a payday fight against Wilder or Joshua. If Whyte loses to either of those guys, then Hearn will likely start the rebuilding process again with him. I don’t think Hearn will cut Whyte loose from his Matchroom stable. I think he’ll hold on to Whyte and keep rebuilding him each time he gets beaten.

Whyte’s recent fight against Chisora showed how flawed he is. Whyte’s defense is nonexistent, and he struggles when his opponents throw sustained combinations. Chisora was nailing Whyte with 5 to 6 punches in a row at times in their fight. Whyte took the shots, but it wasn’t encouraging seeing him get tagged so much. If it had been someone like Deontay hitting Whyte with those same punches, they would have been peeling Whyte off the canvas. He just doesn’t have the defense to be fighting at the upper levels of the heavyweight division. Chisora is more of a gatekeeper type of fighter, and he badly exposed Whyte. He definitely didn’t pass the Chisora test. That should have been a do over for Whyte, but instead Hearn moved him on and is putting him in with 38-year-old Tann. Is this all Hearn thinks Whyte is capable of beating? He’s got to be able to beat better fighters than Tann?

If Hearn believes in Whyte, he should throw him in with Breazeale or Alexander Povetkin and see if he can pass those tests. If not, then it might be better for Hearn to cut him loose and look to sign one of the young amateur heavyweights. Hearn should have signed Joe Joyce and Daniel Dubois before they got scooped up. I think that was a missed opportunity on Hearn’s part.

Whyte isn’t explaining it right when talking about Joshua’s vulnerabilities. Joshua can be beaten if he’s forced to fight hard for a three minute round. If you force Joshua into a 3 minute war, he’ll wear out. We’ve seen Joshua gas out in the Whyte and Wladimir Klitschko fights. Those guys didn’t need to wear Joshua down over many rounds. They got him to gas out after fighting him hard. Joshua gassed in the 2nd round of his fight with Whyte. It took Joshua several rounds to get his second wind. In other words, Joshua stayed gassed out until the 6th. The only reason Joshua didn’t stay tired because Whyte was too injured to force him into another heated exchange like the one that took place in the 2nd.

In Joshua’s fight with Wladimir on April 29, Joshua threw a lot of punches in round 6 in trying to knock Wladimir out. Wladimir came on and dropped Joshua in the same round, and dominated him for the next three rounds while he was gassed out. Joshua is vulnerable because he’s lousy stamina, and he doesn’t recover quickly. If you force Joshua to brawl with you for even one round, he’s going to gas out in my opinion, and he’s going to stay tired for at least the next three rounds. If you keep forcing him to throw punches in the following rounds, he can be stopped. Wladimir fought timidly and take advantage of Joshua being totally exhausted in rounds 7 through 9. Wladimir was out-boxing Joshua, and he thought he would just win an easy decision. He didn’t realize that Joshua would get his second wind, and that he might not have been given a decision anyway due to the fight being staged in Joshua’s hometown. It a miscalculation on Wladimir’s part, and that’s why he lost the fight. A clever fighter would have knocked Joshua out by going after him in rounds 7 through 9 to finish him off. I hate to say it, but Deontay Wilder would have smelled blood in the water and would have looked to knockout Joshua if he had him in the same depleted position that Wladimir did. Wilder isn’t the type to play it safe with his hurt opponents. When Wilder hurts someone, he’s not looking to box on the outside and try and win a decision.

“My name is being mentioned with all the top heavyweights in the world,” said Whyte. 

He’s world champion and he’s calling my name, so I’ll take it as a privilege that the world champion is calling me out. I’m happy about that.”

As far as I can tell, the only reason Whyte’s name is being mentioned a lot in the boxing media is because of Hearn trying hard to get him a world title shot against WBC champion Wilder. If not for that, I don’t think Whyte’s name would be mentioned. Whyte is ranked #5 by the WBC. Without Hearn pushing hard and making big money offers to Wilder for the fight, Whyte would likely have to wait possibly 3 years to get a world title shot. There’s a lot of guys in front of Whyte in the WBC’s rankings, and Wilder tends to fight a lot of voluntary defenses. He’s had 5 voluntary defenses in a row since winning the WBC belt in 2015. Wilder hasn’t fought his mandatory challenger in the 2 years he’s been the WBC champ. As such, it could take many years for Whyte to get a crack at Wilder’s belt unless Hearn can throw enough money at Wilder to give Whyte a title shot. Like I was saying, without Hearn trying hard to make the Wilder-Whyte fight, I don’t think Whyte’s name would be mentioned in the media.