It’s official: Tyson Fury will fight Dillian Whyte in a WBC title defence next. It’s been reported by Sky Sports and other news outlets that Frank Warren won today’s purse bid battle to promote the fight.
Warren, who co-promotes Fury with Bob Arum, secured the Fury-Whyte fight with a bid of £31 million. Eddie Hearn, who said before today’s purse bids how he would be “aggressive” in his attempt to get the fight, put in a bid of £24 million.
The fight has to take place by April 29th at the latest and reports say The Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales is the frontrunner to host the fight.
Fury will earn a substantial sum of £25 million, while challenger Whyte will earn a not too shabby at all £6 million, this is due to the now agreed 80-20 purse split in favor of the defending champion. The fight will go out on BT Sport pay-per-view in the UK, while ESPN will televise in America.
So, now that all the paperwork and so forth has been dealt with, the two fighters can get down to business and train for a fight. Not that Fury has not been training already.
Fury has released a couple of short videos and numerous statements in which he says, in a nutshell, he will “smash,” he will “splatter” and he will “give a good hiding” to Whyte.
Whyte has yet to make any public statements yet he is sure to be delighted at having gotten his first crack at a world title – finally! We all know the Dillian Whyte story; how he has been made to wait and wait for his big chance.
Now that it’s here, or is almost here, Whyte, 28-2(19) will no doubt be comping at the bit, as the saying goes. Fury, unbeaten at 31-0-1(22) will be a significant favorite to win the fight, yet there are plenty of good judges who feel this will not in any way be an easy fight for “The Gypsy King.”
Hearn has actually predicted a KO win for Whyte. As for us fans, we now have two potentially great heavyweight title fights to look forward to this year, with Fury-Whyte now 100 percent official and Oleksandr Usyk’s return bout with Anthony Joshua expected to follow. Hopefully, the two winners will then collide in what would be a monster unification showdown.