It’s no secret that Dillian Whyte has got it in for heavyweight colleague Deontay Wilder. The Londoner has been Wilder’s WBC mandatory for God knows how long, but his status has yet to translate into a title shot. What gives? Whyte himself can’t seem to figure it out, nor has been able to get a convincing answer from the powers that be. In the meantime, he has not been shy about turning to the press to air out his grievances.
“Coward.”
“Chicken.”
“Yellow-livered hillbilly.”
Whyte’s latest bit of trash talk arrives just as Wilder and Tyson Fury conducted a press conference to kick start the promotion for their highly anticipated heavyweight title rematch on Feb. 22 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
Congratulations to @BronzeBomber who has been awarded a special belt by @WBCBoxing the WBC Worlds Biggest Coward belt to be known as the WBC WBC belt for successfuly avoiding me as his official #1 ranked challenger for over 800 days #coward #excuses #wbcwbcbelt #800days pic.twitter.com/EjWV8j21lw
— Dillian Whyte (@DillianWhyte) January 13, 2020
In an interview with Sky Sports, Whyte recounted a long ago incident in which he claims to have witnessed Wilder hit the canvas during a sparring session with then-reigning heavyweight titleholder Wladimir Klitschko.
“I’ve seen him getting knocked out,” Whyte said. “Wladimir knocked him out. (Wilder) knew what happened. He had his hands up. He was roughing Wlad up, bringing the smoke, and he was going wild.
“Wlad backs up, changes his footwork, feinting, feinting, jabs to the body, throws that feint jab, left hook. Wilder had his hands up, he was gone. It wasn’t no knockdown, he was knocked cold. Properly twitching as well.”
There it is. Yet another untold sparring tale lifted out of obscurity. Clearly, Whyte does not subscribe to the oft-cited brotherly code, “What happens in the gym, stays in the gym.”
“That’s why they probably didn’t want him to fight Wlad,” Whyte (27-1, 18 KOs) continued, “because Wlad was going to fight him as a pro and Wilder never fancied it the whole time.”
Meanwhile, Wilder (42-0-1, 41 KOs) seems to be doing alright for himself. After a pay-per-view outing against Luis Ortiz last November, in which he knocked out the Cuban in the seventh round, he will attempt to settle unfinished business with Fury in another pay-per-view clash. The first fight ended in a controversial draw.
Whyte, on the other hand, is coming off a particularly sluggish performance against Mariusz Wach on the undercard of the Andy Ruiz Jr.-Anthony Joshua rematch on Dec. 7. Before that, his career nearly came down in flames when he allegedly tested positive for a banned substance before his fight against Oscar Rivas in July. The issue was exacerbated by the fact Rivas and his team were not aware of the test result. The WBC dropped Whyte’s mandatory status but reinstating him after UK Anti-Doping cleared him of wrongdoing.
As it pertains to a match-up with Wilder, Whyte was a bit more charitable, noting that “It would be a tough fight because he is quite agile with awkward movement. I would expect a tough fight, but I believe I can knock Wilder out.”
“People might laugh, but I believe I can get to him and knock him out. It wouldn’t be a fight where I would jab my way in. I’d run at him in the first round and start brawling and, if I get chinned, then so be it.”