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While this isn’t exactly confirmation that the circus is coming to town, WBN is now reporting the Matchroom Boxing has canceled their plans to stage an interim WBC heavyweight title fight between Dillian Whyte and Alexander Povetkin. The fight had originally been slated for early May before the coronavirus hit, then pushed back to early July, and now has been shut down completely.
Whyte (27-1, 18 KOs) has been the WBC’s #1 contender for quite some time now, which has been a huge source of frustration for him as he’s pushed for his shot at the world title currently held by Tyson Fury. This ‘interim’ title fight against Povetkin was supposed to appease Whyte to some degree, I suppose, but he’ll now need to look elsewhere.
And by looking elsewhere, that could mean a potential crossover fight against Francis Ngannou, which is an idea that’s been floated plenty by Eddie Hearn himself while aiming to iron out the particulars with UFC’s Dana White. At this time it’s not clear how much traction the idea has gained, but we’ll surely figure that out in short order.