Dillian Whyte is throwing his hat in the ring, volunteering to be former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou’s first opponent in his boxing career that he’s about to start.
The 36-year-old Ngannou recently announced that he wanted to start boxing and immediately targeted Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury as the guys he wants to face.
Not surprisingly, Ngannou didn’t mention the 34-year-old Whyte (28-3, 19 KOs), who has arguably lost three out of his last four fights and looked totally shot since 2019.
Whyte says a fight between him and Ngannou would get “a lot of eyeballs,” with fans wanting to see this match-up in high numbers.
That’s hard to believe because whatever popularity Whyte once had in the UK, it withered away after his knockout losses to Tyson Fury & Alexander Povetkin and his controversial win over Jermaine Franklin.
Dillian has become the new Derek Chisora for the UK, replacing the soon-to-retire 39-year-old. Ngannou isn’t going to want to waste his time fighting Whyte because there are hundreds of ham & egger heavyweights he can fight beside him, who are just as mediocre.
Whyte isn’t well known in the U.S. and would be dead weight for Ngannou in bringing in interest from American boxing fans.
Ngannou would be the only attraction, and Whyte just the cardboard prop or punching bag opponent, who would bring nothing to the table to interest U.S. fans. If this is all Ngannou can get in the boxing world, he might as well return to the UFC.
“I would love to fight him,” Dillian Whyte said to Sky Sports about his interest in facing Francis Ngannou. “I think I would bash him up.
“Fans around the world would be keen to see it because he is a former UFC champion coming to face a top heavyweight like me.
“He’s up for jumping in at the deep end, fighting someone like me. It would get lots of interest and eyeballs.”
Some British boxing fans might be interested in seeing Whyte fight Ngannou, but it would be one of those matches that are like people rubbernecking on a highway in seeing a car wreck. It would be like, ‘What is this mess?’
“End of March, early April, something like that. That would give him plenty of time for a full camp,” said Whyte about when he’d be available to fight Ngannou. I would happily fight him in boxing and the cage as well.”
