Dillian Whyte must beat Alexander Povetkin on March 6th to get title shot

By Michael Collins - 02/07/2021 - Comments

Dillian ‘The Body Snatcher’ Whyte will be at the last chance saloon on March 6th when he takes on WBC heavyweight mandatory Alexander Povetkin in a crucial fight on DAZN.

Some boxing fans are critical of Whyte being given a rematch, as they feel that if he’d beaten Povetkin, he wouldn’t have given him a second chance.

Whyte likely would have moved on. The real question is, how many times does Povetkin need to beat Whyte before he can face the winner of the Anthony Joshua vs. Tyson Fury fights.

Whyte (27-2, 18 KOs) has already been knocked out brutally by the 2004 Olympic gold medalist Povetkin (36-2-1, 25 KOs) last August at Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn’s childhood home in beautiful Brentwood, Essex.

We heard the excuses from the 32-year-old Whyte afterward, but he seems to have finally come to terms with what happened to him.

It was a situation where Povetkin did his homework by studying Whyte’s previous fights and noting that he has no defense for an uppercut.

Whyte was knocked down hard by the same punch in his WBC title eliminator against Oscar Rivas in 2019, and he was lucky to win that fight.

While some boxing fans are second-guessing Dillian’s decision to fight the 41-year-old Povetkin in an immediate rematch, Whyte has no choice. He wants to regain his WBC mandatory position and the massive payday that will come with that spot

The only way for Whyte to do that is by fighting Povetkin again and hoping he doesn’t get nailed by another big uppercut.

Whyte didn’t overlook Povetkin

“I’m not the kind of guy that would overlook a guy like Povetkin, a former world champion and former Olympic champion,” said Dillian Whyte to AK & Barak show when asked if his loss to Povetkin was due to him looking past the Russian fighter.

Dillian Whyte must beat Alexander Povetkin on March 6th to get title shot

“He’s a great fighter, he’s only lost three fights in his whole career, and he’s someone that hasn’t lost in many years. From amateur to pro, he’s beaten, everyone.

“If you look at his amateur, all the way through, he was beating everybody. We know how tough he is, we know how good he is, and we know how skillful, obviously.

“Some people say he was this age or that age, but the last thing that goes is someone’s punch, as we saw in the fight.

“So I never overlooked him. The whole time I stayed grounded,” said Whyte.

In the fourth round of that fight, Whyte twice dropped Povetkin with big hooks to the head.

It looked like Dillian had the fight in the bag going into the fifth, but he failed to realize that the powerful Russian was setting him up.

Povetkin saved that shot for the right moment, and he picked the perfect time to throw it in the fifth.

Whyte had gotten careless by that point in the fight, thinking he could finish off Povetkin, and he paid a heavy price.

Dillian must beat Povetkin to get a title shot

“None of those fights mean nothing unless I get past this guy,” Dillian said of his rematch with Povetkin.

Dillian Whyte must beat Alexander Povetkin on March 6th to get title shot

“It’s a shame that I was put in the position where I had to keep taking world title worthy fights without a world title on the line for the best part of three years.

“It’s crazy. I never overlook anyone I fight. I bring the same energy and the same mindset for every fight.

“I thought I did everything right in the fight [against Povetkin]. There were a few technical issues. A few times, I was doing a few things that I shouldn’t have been doing.

“Obviously, I was so engaged and switching off and engaging and switching off. I don’t have to change much.

“I just have to go in there and be consistent, do what I got to do, and be a dog, that’s it. Just take the fight from him early and make it into a brawl.

“Sometimes you think, ‘I’m going to try and do this, and I’m going to try and do that. But one thing, I’m a fighter that needs to flow and not waste time thinking about this or that.

“I just want to get in there and just start throwing and letting it go early. That’s what I got to try and start to do because every time I touched him, we all saw the results,” Whyte said of Povetkin.

If Whyte loses this fight, he’ll have to go back fighting the likes Dereck Chisora to try and rebuild.

Given that Dillian is with Matchroom, he might be given an undeserved title shot if Joshua is still the champion after his two fights with Fury.

But Whyte would need to redeem himself first by beating a solid heavyweight because a fight with him and Joshua wouldn’t sell if he’s coming off back to back knockout losses to Povetkin.

We don’t know if Whyte can still take a punch after the way he was knocked out cold by Povetkin in the fifth round. A punch like that can do a number on a fighter.

Former heavyweight world title challenger Eric Molina questions whether Whyte will be the same fighter he was before getting knocked out by Povetkin.

He says a knockout like the one Whyte suffered takes something away from a fighter.

If Whyte isn’t the same fighter he was before that match, he might not last long against Povetkin on March 6th.

Hearn would have to talk to Whyte about potentially retiring if he’s knocked cold a second time.

Whyte claims he never hit Alexander clean

“I didn’t even properly hit him once,” Whyte said of his fight against Povetkin last August. Even the body punches, his body was shaking.

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“One time, I hit him to the body, and he was looking at me in the face like, ‘Come on, dude. This is a fight. Why are you trying to hit me like that?’

“I was good. I got up before the ten-second count, and I was good. I was up. My conditioning wasn’t a problem. I was in great shape, and I was at the perfect weight for me.

“I weighed 114 [kilograms], and I think I was even lighter, but I had a drug gest. I had to drink a bunch of water and stuff before the weigh-in.

“I had to drink two liters of water, so that made me put a  bit of weight on before the weigh-in. But I was in good shape.

“You could see that I was in good shape. I was strong, I was good. Povetkin has a lot of experience.

“He’s a tough guy with a lot of experience. He’s one of those tough guys. He probably practiced that punch [left uppercut] two million times his whole life.

“He was like that one time ‘I’m in trouble, I’ve got to put something out.’  He just pulled it out. Congratulations to him, and well done to him.

“I’m not making any excuses. I didn’t say it was a lucky punch. I just said it was a good punch.

“He [Povetkin] landed a punch, and that was it. I went for a hook, and he went with an uppercut, and he got there before me. That’s all,” Whyte said.

Povetkin was hit with some big shots from Whyte, most of which he took. If those shots weren’t thrown with full power by Whyte, that would be strange. What was Whyte waiting for?

Whyte is kidding himself when he talks about getting up before the 10-count after his knockdown in the fifth. The referee had to stop the fight when he saw that Whyte wasn’t stirring.

This isn’t the 1930s where a referee gives a count to a fighter that is badly hurt with both eyes closed.

Taking the easy path doesn’t interest Whyte

“It’s just how my career has gone, and it’s just what the fans have come to expect from me,” said Whyte on why he’s not had a lot of tune-up level fights like other guys.

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“Sometimes you fall into these roads, and it’s just what it is. Nobody wants to see me fighting no tune-up easy fight.

“They want to see me fighting proper fights, and that’s where you become a star-fighter in the division.

“There are two ways of doing it. You can be one of those guys who get looked after and get promoted and be like that pretty guy that looks good, Olympic medalist, whatever you are.

“Then there are the dogs out there that go out and work, and go out and grind. He [Anthony Joshua] went on to do big things and win world titles.

“He obviously beat me on the way to winning a heavyweight title, obviously.

“If you look at the careers and the lifestyles in what we’ve went through in life.

“What I went through, and he went through with our careers. That’s life. Stuff happens, and you can’t cry, so it’s all good,” said Dillian.

What Whyte isn’t saying is he’s a pay-per-view fighter in the UK and fights on Sky Box Office. You can’t expect Whyte to take soft jobs exclusively, given that the fans have to pay to see him fight.

But it’s up to Whyte, though. If he doesn’t want to fight on pay-per-view, he can face journeyman-level opposition so that he can avoid losing again.

Whyte isn’t going to do that because the money is too good fighting on PPV, but he’s going to be risking it each time. It goes with the territory.

If you want to fight in the man event on PPV, Whyte can’t be fighting stumble-bums.

Losing doesn’t worry ‘The Body Snatcher’

“Andy Ruiz is crazy. We offered him 7 or 8 million dollars,” said Whyte. “He got less than that to fight Joshua the first time, and he took it.

“Then he got more than that to fight Joshua after losing to Joshua. Then he started talking some stuff and saying some stuff. I don’t know what’s wrong with these guys.

“It’s business; it’s boxing. So what if you lose once or twice? So what? If you lose a couple of fights, it doesn’t matter.

“As long as you compete with the best people, you go in there and show people you want to fight, and you fight.

“You look at Dereck Chisora. The guy has had 12 losses or something, but he’s still one of the fans’ favorites.

“He’s a warrior. You got to respect Delboy because he comes to put work in. So you got to respect these cats,” said Whyte.

Dillian would likely be very worried about losing if he wasn’t with Matchroom and fighting in the UK.

If Whyte fought out of America, his career would be in serious trouble if he were to get knocked out repeatedly. You can argue that the networks would be hesitant to have Whyte fighting in the main event on PPV in the U.S if he were to get knocked out a second time by Povetkin.

But in the UK, it’s different. The fans there are more forgiving about seeing their fighters take loss after loss. I mean, look at Dereck Chisora. He’s a glorified journeyman with 10 defeats on his resume, and yet he’s still a headliner on pay-per-view.