With Tyson Fury even hinting that he might be open to face Dillian Whyte for the WBC’s ‘Diamond’ belt, Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn jumped all over it to essentially say that bout would be coming. Well, Fury quickly put an end to all that when he said ultimately said that he had no interest in facing Whyte because he’s the lineal heavyweight champion.
So with Fury dousing cold water all over that potential fight, Hearn has come out to express his frustration on behalf of Whyte. Check out some excerpts below.
Hearn on Fury recently turning down the Whyte fight:
“That deserves another ‘I’m busy, don’t waste my time’...So we write to the WBC to say we sought resolution at the moment...Mauricio [Sulaiman] saw that video and said to us ‘Did you see the video [of Fury saying he’d fight Whyte for the diamond belt]? Let’s do it.” We wrote back and said ‘we agree, let’s do it.’
“So now they’re gonna write to him to order him to fight Dillian Whyte for the diamond belt and now [Fury’s] saying ‘no.’ What, was he joking? I don’t know. It’s really, really frustrating. But listen, again, it’s a lot of time-wasters out there so we’ve got to deal with what we do know which is right now Joshua against Ruiz, Whyte against Rivas, and if Whyte beats Rivas and Fury don’t fight him, Dillian Whyte is mandatory to Deontay Wilder and Wilder will have to fight [Dillian Whyte].
“But I’m gutted because Whyte-Fury is a great fight. So, I don’t know.”
On Fury calling Anthony Joshua an average fighter:
“Hopefully the WBO will make him mandatory, or someone will make him mandatory, and he’ll turn that down as well. And he’ll blame the percentage split, or whatever he’ll do, but...”
On why not push for a Joshua-Fury fight:
“We will push that as a mandatory. You know, you’ve got Schwarz against Fury in a couple of weeks. You know, I don’t know what will happen with Usyk. You’ve got Dillian Whyte out there, it looks like Dillian Whyte is gonna be the WBC mandatory, so, I don’t know, everything’s sort of moving around but no problem with fighting Tyson Fury. But these people talk a great game — you know, he wants 50/50, he was offered 60/40, whatever. But it’s just the Whyte stuff was frustrating, because he was ordered to fight Whyte for the interim, and he said ‘I’m not fighting Whyte for the interim, make it for the diamond, I’m in. I’ll smash you everywhere, blah blah blah.’
“So we come back, spoke to the WBC, got it all moving, saying ‘it’s on’ and now he’s saying ‘actually, no, I won’t fight him.’”
On Dillian Whyte being pissed off with Fury:
“Of course he is! We’ve been working behind the scenes to get this up-and-running — he wants to fight Tyson Fury. Tyson Fury’s more personal because he called him out...so Dillian went ‘come on then, let’s go!’ And [Fury] went ‘acutally, no, no.’ [Shrugs] So we’ll concentrate on this.”
On Amir Khan rumored to be earning $8-9M for his upcoming fight in Saudi Arabia:
“I’m not sure that the numbers are quite [that] specific, but there is conversation going on about an event there in the summer. I’m involved a little bit on those conversations and, yeah, we will see.”
On Wilder-Ortiz II being slated for PPV:
“Same problem you have in the UK in that the money these guys are on, they’re not selling any tickets, so where’s the money coming from? Showtime aren’t paying it, they haven’t got any money. So they have to put it on pay-per-view. It’s only gonna do 150,000 buys...But this is what happens sometimes: you try so hard to avoid things and it ends up costing you a load of money, when you shoud’ve just taken something, made a load of money and gambled you may have won.
“Now you’re overpaying for Breazeale, overpaying for Ortiz, doing your absolute conkers on the way — it’s madness.”