By: Hans Themistode
In the sport of boxing, it’s seldom that the trash talking and physical threats are taken seriously. The reasoning is simple, either someone has what you want or, the fighters are attempting to drum up interest in their inevitable showdown.
In the case of heavyweight contender Dillian Whyte and his continual call outs of former WBC titlist Deontay Wilder, he merely wanted what Wilder had.
“It was the belt and not personal,” said Whyte during an interview with Ak and Barak, “But obviously the energy is different.”
For Whyte (27-2, 18 KOs), the motivation to face Wilder is still high, however, it isn’t quite the same.
After spending years chasing the long-standing heavyweight champion, Whyte’s jaw hit the deck once he saw Wilder dominated and knocked out by Tyson Fury in late February just last year. While the defeat was surprising, Whyte found it somewhat ironic that Wilder lost the very title the British native has been pursuing his entire career.
“He was trying to make me wait for years and he did but then he ended up losing it.”
With Wilder now beltless, a showdown between the pair has lost a bit of its luster. With that being said, if a contract with Wilder’s name was presented to him, he would still sign without a moment’s hesitation.
“It’s a big fight and a fight that I would like at some point.”
While Whyte normally enjoys discussing his endless possibilities, he is fully aware that he still has work to do.
In what was originally thought to be a walk in the park matchup against Alexander Povetkin, the British native quickly found out that it would be one of the worst nights of his life. After dominating the first four rounds during their August showdown, including two knockdowns, Whyte appeared to be on his way to closing the show in the very next round.
Those thoughts, of course, never quite came to fruition as Povetkin turned the entire fight around with one left uppercut which ended Whyte’s 11 fight win streak. Now, after being forced to wait for Povetkin to recover from COVID-19, the two will run things back on March 6th.
Having had the time to look back at his knockout loss, Whyte offers no excuses. Instead, he simply tipped his cap to the Russian product.
“Povetkin is a serious dude. I was beating him up and dominating and lost concentration for a second and that was all she wrote you know.”