Whyte: Fury And His Fans Say He's The Best Of All Time; When I Win, I'll Let Fans Decide Where I Stand

There is an easy argument to be made that Dillian Whyte is the best heavyweight in the world to have never fought for a full version of a divisional title.

That dynamic will change this weekend, as he is set to challenge lineal/WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury (31-0-1, 22KOs) at Wembley Stadium in London. Whyte (28-2, 19KOs) enters supremely confident of trumping his British countryman, though admittedly hasn’t given much thought to where he will land following such an historic feat.

“We’ll have to see after Saturday night when I win,” Whyte insisted during a recent Zoom media conference call to discuss his long-awaited shot at the heavyweight championship. “For me, Tyson Fury and his fans say he’s the best fighter of all time. He says he’s the new 6’9” Muhammad Ali, George Foreman and Mike Tyson combined.

“So, when I win, then I don’t know. I’ll let [the fans and media] decide where I stand.”

Whyte has not fought since a fourth-round knockout of Alexander Povetkin last March 23 in Gibraltar. The feat saw the Jamaica-born heavyweight—now based out of Brixton, England—avenge a prior defeat to the Russian heavyweight in August 2020, thus ending a four-plus year run where Whyte emerged as a leading heavyweight contender.

A lot of traction was gained from Whyte’s placement atop the WBC rankings, with the insistence that he was the number-one contender for more than 1,000 days without getting his crack at the top prize. The Mexico City-headquartered sanctioning body never officially named Whyte as its mandatory challenger until late last year, only after his revenge-fueled win over Povektin to regain the interim WBC heavyweight title.

Eleven consecutive wins came between Whyte’s two career defeats, the first coming in a seventh-round stoppage to Anthony Joshua in their December 2015 battle of unbeaten rising heavyweights. Joshua went on to claim the IBF title in his next fight, going on to add the WBA/IBF/WBO belts while emerging as a leading attraction in the sport.

Whyte was forced to rebuild the hard way, emerging as a top contender as well as a notable gate attraction in his own right. The run came through a series of wins over fellow contenders Robert Helenius, Lucas Browne, Oscar Rivas and—to a lesser degree—Derek Chisora (twice) as well as former titlist Joseph Parker, all while developing as a box-office draw and pay-per-view headliner.

Manchester’s Fury attempts the second defense of the WBC title this weekend, coming off a thrilling eleventh-round knockout of Deontay Wilder in their epic trilogy clash last October 9 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Both fighters were aware of having to next face Whyte, who was forced to wait out their second and third fight before earning his long overdue crack at, historically, the sport’s most coveted prize.

“We had a good training camp, been training hard. I don’t have any illusion of what I’m up against,” admits the 6’4” Whyt, who will likely be outweighed by more than 30 pounds against the 6’9” Fury. “He’s a big guy and it’s going to be a hard fight, obviously. I feel good. I’ll believe that I’ll go in there and beat him.”

Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox