By Edward Chayovsky
According to British heavyweight contender Dillian Whyte, he "beat down" domestic rival Dereck Chisora in past sparring sessions.
He believes Chisora has been holding a grudge against him since those sparring battles.
If there are any hard feelings, they will have the opportunity to settle their feud on December 10th in Manchester, as part of the undercard to Anthony Joshua's IBF heavyweight title defense against Eric Molina, live on Sky Sports Box Office.
Their rivalry has been brewing for a while. Chisora crashed one of Whyte's press conferences earlier this year and they nearly came to blows. And they've had several vicious battles on social media.
The fight has some extra meaning as the World Boxing Council sanctioned the contest as a world title eliminator, with the winner getting in line for a mandatory crack at WBC heavyweight king Deontay Wilder. The current WBC mandatory challenger is Alexander Povetkin of Russia.
Whyte is hoping to close the book on his rivalry with Chisora by scoring a big knockout victory. He says the game plan will be easy to construct because in Whyte's opinion Chisora is a very predictable fighter.
"I sparred with him years ago and put the beat down on him then when I had no experience, so probably there's been ill feelings since then," Whyte exclusively told Sky Sports. I'm not going to say too much before the fight, but I've been sparring Dereck for a while, I've been holding my own, and beating him up for a few years now.
"But times have changed, things have changed. I think this is last chance saloon for him, so I'm expecting him to come and fight, and for the best Dereck Chisora to show up on December 10 - the best one there has ever been. I'm looking to knock Dereck Chisora out."
"Dereck Chisora is the most one-dimensional, predictable fighter in the whole of boxing history. Even a journeyman shows a bit more class and is less predictable. I beat Dereck Chisora then the likes of Deontay Wilder, Luis Ortiz, Anthony Joshua, David Haye - I want to fight the likes of those kind of guys next year. It's a WBC world title eliminator, so we'll see. Those are the kind of fights I want."
