WBC officially orders Tyson Fury to face Dillian Whyte

After several years and many, many shenanigans, Dillian Whyte will finally challenge for the WBC heavyweight title. The sanctioning body has officially ordered him to begin negotiations with champion Tyson Fury, and Keith Idec reports that current plans are to stage the fight this March in either Cardiff or Manchester.

Whyte’s (28-2, 19 KO) relationship with the WBC has been very long, very acrimonious, and very stupid. He first won their “silver” title in 2017 with a decision over Robert Helenius and got the interim title by beating Oscar Rivas two years later, but the promised title bout never panned out before he suffered a shock knockout loss to Alexander Povetkin in 2020. He went on to stop Povetkin in their rematch and was set to face a solid foe in Otto Wallin, but shortly after the WBC announced that the winner of Fury’s (31-0-1, 22 KO) threematch with Deontay Wilder had to face either the interim titlist or Oleksandr Usyk next, “The Body Snatcher” withdrew due to a shoulder injury.

Not accusing him of anything but, well, yeah.

Shortly thereafter, the WBC punted one more time by claiming that Whyte’s ongoing litigation prevented them from making him mandatory. Considering how quickly that got resolved, I’m assuming that was a wee bit of pettiness. Not to impugn Mauricio Sulaiman’s character, of course.

It’s still a very good fight, arguably the best Fury can put together at the moment with both Usyk and Anthony Joshua occupied. Silliness aside, I’m down.