In a recent interview, WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder fired off some verbal bombs in the direction of mandatory challenger Dillian Whyte.

Whyte, who holds the WBC's interim title, is in line to fight for the full world title.

Willder will defend his title against Tyson Fury in a rematch on February 22 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The winner of that fight must defend the title against Whyte by February of 2021.

Wilder claims that Whyte, who has been waiting for a shot at the title since 2018, had plenty of opportunities to put himself in position for a fight - but he allegedly backed away from those openings. Wilder claims Whyte walked away from final eliminators against Dominic Breazeale and Luis Ortiz.

Whyte claims to have documents from the WBC that prove he agreed to go forward with more than one final eliminator.

"Deontay Wilder needs to relax and behave himself," Whyte told Sky Sports. "The WBC need to speak to him, because I'll start publishing documents and then he'll be really embarrassed.

"I'll actually publish WBC documents showing that I requested and accepted these fights and I've agreed to these fights - and everyone knew. I was mandated to fight Breazeale and Tyson Fury at my insistence. We made the fight with Breazeale and the WBC pulled him out to fight Deontay Wilder. How can he say I didn't want to fight Dominic Breazeale?

"I want to fight Deontay Wilder, that's who I want to fight," said the 31-year-old. "I don't care about no one else, apart from him, and he needs to stop being a coward. I've got a better resume than him. I've beaten more world champions than him. I've been ranked No 1 challenger since 2017, before his first fake mandatory against Bermane Stiverne, and I've been trying to chase him for a million days now.

"He says I'm garbage, he says I'm a liar, he says I'm a phoney. He says this and that, but then he doesn't want to man up to fight me and just cherry-picks easy defences and his own mandatories. He's the most protected and cowardly heavyweight champion in the history of the sport."