The WBC could make Dillian Whyte their next email champion if he continues to pursue fighting WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury this year, according to Bob Arum.
Whyte wants to fight Fury before he faces Deontay Wilder in their trilogy and before he fights IBF/WBA/WBO champ Anthony Joshua.
The Franchise title would allow Fury to circumvent his mandated defense against Whyte. On the surface, this would look like a wrong move on the WBC’s part to make Fury the Franchise champion, but the fans don’t want to see him fight Whyte before he battles Wilder and Joshua.
Whyte is arguably a low priority with fans right now. They’d rather see Fury face Wilder in 2020, and then Joshua twice in 2021. Whyte would be stuck in a holding pattern until 2022.
Unfortunately, Whyte isn’t willing to wait until 2022, and he’s likely to make a lot of noise with his grumbling if he doesn’t get his title shot against the WBC belt holder Fury by early 2021. That’s why Arum is talking about Fury potentially being made the WBC Franchise champion, which would allow him to steer around Whyte to fight the guys that the boxing public wants to see him face.
Whyte doesn’t have the same popularity as Joshua or Wilder, so he’s someone that will either need to wait, or he could be steered around with the help of the WBC, making Fury the Franchise champion.
Arum says the WBC could make Fury their Franchise champion and Whyte the new WBC heavyweight champion. That’s not a double move that the Top Rank promoter Arum is looking to have the World Boxing Council make, but its one that’s possible of Whyte keeps insisting on getting his title shot against Fury.
Whyte’s fans don’t like the idea of Fury being made the Franchise champion, as they think he deserves getting a title shot against him before he faces Wilder and Joshua. They point out that Whyte has been ranked #1 with the WBC since 2017.
What they don’t realize is Whyte chose not fo fight in the WBC title eliminator until 2019. Whyte has only been the mandatory officially for 11 months since his win over Oscar Rivas in July 2019.
“Nobody’s asking the WBC to make Tyson Fury a ‘franchise’
champion, but if Whyte pursues this idea of fighting Fury before he fought Wilder again and then Joshua, that would be the way I think the WBC would go. The public knows who’s the champ.” PepTalk_UK.
It’s also possible that the WBC might even make Whyte fight for the vacant title rather than giving it to him. If they order Whyte to fight for the belt, he would need to face one of these three heavyweights in the WBC’s rankings:
- Oscar Rivas
- Andy Ruiz, Jr.
- Luis Ortiz
Whyte already beat Rivas by a 12 round decision for the interim WBC title in July 2019, but that doesn’t matter. If the WBC orders Whyte and Rivas to battle for the full WBC champion, Dillian would either need to agree to it, or he would miss out on his shot at winning the title.
Whyte was supposed to fight Luis Ortiz in a title eliminator in 2018 after the WBC ordered the two to fight. Dillian preferred to fight the guys that he wanted to face in Dereck Chisora and Joseph Parker. Hence, it resulted in Whyte missing out on earning the WBC mandatory spot in 2018. If Whyte had done that, he would have likely gotten his title shot by this time.
Whyte might not last long as the WBC champion if he has to face Ruiz, Rivas, or Ortiz. Those guys can fight, and Whyte is a flawed champion that is on par with Dereck Chisora in terms of talent.