By Keith Idec
Dillian Whyte went in on Deontay Wilder again Monday.
The British heavyweight contender called Wilder “an embarrassment to heavyweight boxing” in an interview that was posted on skysports.com Monday. Whyte began calling out Wilder last month, which drew a long, expletive-laden response from the unbeaten WBC heavyweight champion through his social media accounts.
That didn’t stop Whyte from attacking Wilder’s heavyweight championship reign again.
“In this game, nobody’s going to give each other anything,” Whyte told Sky Sports. “You have to go after it yourself.
“Guys like Deontay Wilder are an embarrassment to heavyweight boxing. All the great champions have losses on their record because they fought other great fighters. And that’s the problem with Deontay Wilder – his last 10 fights have been with nobody.”
Wilder last defended his title February 25 in Birmingham, Alabama, near his hometown of Tuscaloosa. The 6-feet-7 Wilder (38-0, 37 KOs) stopped former USC football player Gerald Washington (18-1-1, 12 KOs) in the fifth round of that fight, which was broadcast on free TV by FOX.
Wilder has a mandatory defense of his title due against Quebec-based contender Bermane Stiverne (25-2-1, 21 KOs), who Wilder beat by unanimous decision to win the title in January 2015 in Las Vegas. Television executives haven’t expressed much interest in broadcasting a Wilder-Stiverne rematch, but Don King, Stiverne’s promoter, thus far has been unwilling to accept money for Stiverne to step aside and allow Wilder to fight someone else in his next bout.
“We have offered him five times more money than he made for his last fight, but he doesn’t want the fight,” Whyte said, referring to Eddie Hearn, the front man for Matchroom Sport, the company that promotes him. “So what’s the problem?
“Why’s he avoiding? Because he knows I’m dangerous and he knows that he’ll lose the fight.”
London’s Whyte (20-1, 15 KOs) is ranked No. 5 by the WBC, but Wilder wants to face the United Kingdom’s hottest heavyweight, Anthony Joshua (19-0, 19 KOs), the IBF/IBO/WBA champion. The Jamaican-born Whyte suffered his lone loss, a seventh-round technical knockout, to Joshua in December 2015.
Meanwhile, Whyte has agreed to fight an undetermined opponent on the Terence Crawford-Julius Indongo undercard August 19 in Lincoln, Nebraska. ESPN will broadcast the bout between Crawford (31-0, 22 KOs), the WBC/WBO super lightweight champion from nearby Omaha, and Namibia’s Indongo (22-0, 11 KOs), the IBF/IBO/WBA 140-pound champion.
Indongo is co-promoted by Matchroom Sport, Whyte’s promoter.
“It’s a big show,” Whyte said. “It’s a massive card. I think it’s the first full unification fight in about 20 or 30 years, all the belts on the line, Terence Crawford against Julius Indongo. So I’m very excited about it.
“We’re trying to get the Deontay Wilder fight, so it’ll be good for me to get some exposure in the USA and get some experience abroad as well.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.