Heavyweight Dillian Whyte sees no reason for former unified champion Andy Ruiz to turn down a potential fight between the two of them.
They were both part of the Matchroom card staged back in December in Saudi Arabia.
Ruiz lost his WBO, IBF, WBA, IBO world titles in the main event, when he was outboxed over twelve rounds by Anthony Joshua. On the undercard, Whyte won a tough decision over Mariusz Wach.
According to Whyte, Ruiz was offered as much money as he made for the first contest with Joshua in June 2019.
He says Ruiz needed more time to get in proper shape. Ruiz was in poor form for the Joshua rematch. Afterwards he parted ways with head trainer Manny Robles.
But Whyte was also in lackluster shape when he faced Wach.
“Eddie tried to make the fight, I think he offered him $4 million and said ‘here’s $4 million, if it’s not enough we’ll make it $5 million and we have a fight’. The budget was $5 million from what I can see. You don’t open a negotiation at the top of the bar, you open it with wiggle room. This is the business," Whyte told Talk Sport.
“Ruiz said ‘ah well, I was a little bit overweight last time, I need time to get the weight off and I said ‘yo, I was something like eight kilos overweight in my last fight, I’m not in any better place than you’. He had a bad performance against Joshua, you’re getting similar money to fight Joshua the first time, you say I’m a nobody and that I’m easy work, come and get the easy work! All these guys say things about me but one thing they can never say is that I’m a coward or easy work. They can’t say that.