Hearn Reacts To Arum Downplaying Whyte's Worth For Fury Shot

In a recent interview, Top Rank's CEO Bob Arum, who promotes WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury, made it clear that he won't allow his fighters to have their plans derailed by mandatory obligations.

Specifically, he won't allow Fury's plans to get derailed by a mandatory order to fight Dillian Whyte by February 2021.

Fury captured the WBC world title back in February, when he stopped Deontay Wilder in seven rounds.

Fury is now bound to a contracted trilogy fight with Wilder, which is being targeted for the end of the year.

Should he get past Wilder, then Fury intends to finalize a deal for a two-fight series with IBF, IBO, WBA, WBO champion Anthony Joshua in 2021.

Arum plans to have a conversation with WBC President Mauricio Sulaiman.

"We will be talking to the organisations to eliminate mandatories, or to postpone them all for at least one year. I am sick and tired of being forced, with my marquee fighters, to fight meaningless fights against mandatories that mean nothing," Arum told Sky Sports.

"I won't denigrate Dillian Whyte, but the fact that he's a mandatory means nothing to me. If he fought Fury in the US it would be the same as Fury fighting [Otto Wallin or Tom Schwarz]. It means nothing. All boxing promoters and all organisations have to get together to get things rolling at the highest level. Then we'll worry about mandatories."

Promoter Eddie Hearn finds himself in a bit of a bind. He promotes both Joshua and Whyte.

More than anything, Hearn wants to finalize the two fight deal between Joshua and Fury.

On the other hand, Hearn believes Arum is undervaluing the worth of  Whyte as a main event opponent for Fury.

"I don't think that sometimes he (Arum) recognises what's going on around the world," said Hearn to Sky Sports.

"His world is America, and we have to understand that there's another world out there, and that world of the heavyweight landscape, you're talking about the top fighters in heavyweight boxing. Dillian Whyte should be and is in everybody's conversation. This is a guy who for years has boxed WBC sanctioned events, boxed eliminators, boxed final eliminators, boxed interim world title fights. He has been No 1 for god knows how many days now, I've lost count. He deserves his shot.

"To say that Dillian Whyte carries the same commercial value as Tom Schwarz is ridiculous. This is a major international fight. Tyson Fury against Dillian Whyte is a monstrous fight, a monstrous fight, and it's very disrespectful to say that it's in the same league as Tom Schwarz, because Tom Schwarz wasn't even ranked. I think he squeaked into the WBO somehow, but the reality is - Dillian Whyte is long overdue, and we must make sure we do what we can to make sure he gets that shot."