Comments Thread For: Dillian Whyte vs. Lucas Browne Picked Up By HBO

[Tygshsu]

Everyone wants to tie him down. But it's Joshua's call.

Not Joshua,it's Eddie Hearn that does those sort of things.I remember for AJ v Klitschko last year,AJ was asked weather it would be on Showtime or HBO,he gave the answer 'it's not upto me'.Eddie Hearn and Matchroom handles that.

[Mammoth]

Winner faces Big Baby Miller I'm hoping.

[IMDAZED]

Not Joshua,it's Eddie Hearn that does those sort of things.I remember for AJ v Klitschko last year,AJ was asked weather it would be on Showtime or HBO,he gave the answer 'it's not upto me'.Eddie Hearn and Matchroom handles that.

Joshua’s contract with Hearn ends in autumn. I’m pretty sure he’s going to be able to put in whatever clauses he feels like if he re-ups.

[Chrismart]

Boxing, prison or death? Dillian Whyte was shot, stabbed and kidnapped... now he is on the verge of fighting for the heavyweight world title after finally escaping a childhood of poverty

Underneath the railway arches, around the corner from Coldharbour Lane in Brixton, a couple of mechanics stare out at the pouring rain from a garage that promises 'crash repairs'. One or two jalopies come and go. A bashed-up wreck with flat tyres is parked nearby. It looks like a lost cause.

Next door, at the end of a small alley, is Miguel's. A sign near the entrance proclaims it to be 'London's friendliest gym' but Dillian Whyte has not come here to be amiable. 'I don't like getting up early on Monday morning to get smashed in the mouth,' he says, 'but that's how it goes: you can't swim without getting wet.'

A few minutes later, Whyte, the self-proclaimed 'King of South London', climbs into the ring for his final sparring session before he fights Australian Lucas Browne, at the O2 Arena next Saturday, a contest he is hoping brings him closer to a shot at Deontay Wilder for the WBC world heavyweight boxing title.

In a corner of the gym, a giant of a man with a strip of short, dark hair running from his forehead to the nape of his neck, is psyching himself up. Carl Spencer is 6ft 7in and was a promising heavyweight before injuries interrupted his career, but even with protective headgear, he knows sparring Whyte is likely to be an ordeal. He takes deep breaths.

Spencer is a willing, game fighter who has fought only five contests in a six-year career. He did not lose any of them and he is planning a comeback but today he is being fed to Whyte, whose hard, brutal upbringing, first in Jamaica and then in south London, is reflected in a vicious, brawling, brave style and the nickname, 'the Body Snatcher'.

When Whyte is ready, Spencer climbs into the ring. The two men spar for three rounds. Spencer does not lack courage. A couple of times, he opens his arms out wide to beckon Whyte on. It is not the smartest move. Whyte is not used to restraint. He is quick to anger and he rains down a series of blows on his opponent.

As the third round comes to an end, Whyte drives an upper cut through Spencer's defences which breaks his nose. Spencer groans, more in disappointment and frustration than in pain. Blood stains his grey vest. He berates himself for getting tagged. When the buzzer sounds, he climbs out of the ring and inspects the damage in a mirror. Blood oozes over his lips and flecks the floor of the gym.

Whyte spars another three rounds with Kash Ali, an 11-fight veteran, who knows not to rile him. Then he goes back in with Spencer and once more the two give no quarter. Whyte grows angry again. 'Easy, easy,' says his trainer. 'No,' Whyte shouts back. 'F*** easy.' His life, and his attitude, in two words.

Whyte is 29 and, in many ways, he is surprised he is still here. He was raised in abject poverty in Jamaica. His mother left him with another family when he was two so she could go to London and make a better life for them there. She sent money home so he could be looked after but the money was not spent on Dillian.

When he was a child, he went days without food until he became so hungry and weak he thought he would die. He stole to order and scavenged for Coca-Cola bottles on the beach and in trash cans. With what meagre returns he could muster, he bought sweets because they were cheap and he thought the sugar would revive him.

At 12, he came to Brixton to rejoin his mother but was pitched into another grim struggle for survival. He was shot, he was stabbed and he repaid the violence in ways that he chooses largely to leave unsaid. 'I swapped one ghetto for another,' he says.

Vigilance comes with that kind of lifestyle. It comes with being a street kid running with gangs in Tulse Hill, living an existence that was about survival and little else. Vigilance meant that one summer night in Clapham a decade or more ago, he saw death coming before it claimed him. It meant he fled. It meant he was shot in the leg, not the head.

He was heading to the jail or the morgue. He could have been a nobody. He could have been a bum. He could have been a crime statistic, a kid who bled out on a cold, hard pavement in a south London cul-de-sac.

But then he found boxing and boxing saved him. And now, as he closes in on a world heavyweight title shot, he is a contender. Now, against all expectations, he is somebody.

In December 2015, Whyte came into the wider public consciousness when he fought Anthony Joshua and wobbled him a couple of times before being knocked out in the seventh round.

There was some concern about his large entourage that night. Some of his supporters carry with them echoes of the lawlessness and menace of his old life and when the two fighters exchanged blows after the bell during the contest, some of them piled into the ring. For a few seconds, it felt like he was back in a street fight.

Whyte was an out-of-shape brawler then, a six-round fighter who had no stamina.

He has worked his way back up the rankings since, dedicated himself to improving, to eating right, living right and training hard, and is now the mandatory challenger for Wilder's version of the title.

Later in the day, in the back room of an Italian restaurant in Dulwich Village, he thinks back to his childhood, his mother far away and his father a proponent of an unforgiving form of tough love. Once, when they were coming back from checking fishing nets, his dad threw him off the boat even though he knew his son couldn't swim.

'My dad was raised hard,' says Whyte. 'His own dad's mentality was, "If you're not dead, you can work. If you're not dead, you're all right". My dad raised me the same way. My dad worked the farm. He was a butcher. He was fighting. He was doing all sorts to provide. My dad was trying to prepare me for what he went through as a kid.

'He farmed and fished and cut lumber. We were coming back from fishing and we were 200 metres out from the beach and I was sitting on the boat, chatting rubbish, and he just threw me off the boat and kept on rowing.

'I was shouting, "Dad, dad, dad". I kept going under the water and coming back up. He said, "Drown or swim". In the end, I came back up and put my head down and started swimming. He taught me some very harsh lessons but he made me the man I am.'

Whyte escaped his life in Jamaica only to be pitched into a world of postcode gangs in south London. He tried to survive outside the gangs but soon realised that a black kid operating without any affiliation or security in numbers would find it impossible to enjoy freedom of movement in his area of the capital.

'You start meeting people,' he says. 'Get involved with gangs and other bits and pieces. I left Jamaica to come to England but one place became another place. I lived in Tulse Hill, in Brixton and Coldharbour Lane.

'You needed to be strong. You had to be affiliated with something or someone.

'I got caught up in it as a lone wolf and the next thing you know, you are affiliated and you have to do stuff. If someone challenges you, you have to uphold your reputation.

'If you're a Brixton boy, you're a Brixton boy. You go to Stockwell or some place in Peckham, you'll get killed.

'The first time I got shot was in Clapham. It was summer. There were good parties on the Common. Good raves. You're looking for girls. You're hanging about with your boys and people say, "Let's go to Clapham". At that stage, you think you're invincible. You think you're a so-called bad man and you think you can do what you want.

'I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and it kicked off. I saw things that weren't right and I got shot on the move. A couple of us got shot. I got shot twice in the leg because I was running away.

'The second time I got shot was a bit more, a bit more... I don't want to go into details. If you live the lifestyle, if you live by the sword, you can die by the sword. There were loads of times I thought I was going to die.

'Since I came to London, I have had guns in my face and been kidnapped or whatever. In a way, you don't really care at that time. You accept that this is me, this is what I'm going to do. If it's me or you, I'll do it to you before you do it to me. I never knew any better.

'I had plenty of scares. I used to go from Tulse Hill to Kennington on the 159 bus. And at the time, those buses had no doors on them and you could just jump on them and go upstairs. When I was on the bus, I had to duck down on the top deck so no one would see me when I was going through other areas.

'Guys would see me sometimes and run on the bus to try and stab me or fight me. I got stabbed a couple of times doing that on the bus. I would have to get off and fight because if these guys cornered me on the bus and there are three of them and it's me alone, I'm definitely going to get stabbed up.'

Whyte's life began to change in his late teens. He was in prison in Bristol, awaiting trial and facing 20 years behind bars when his mother and sister came to visit. His mother began to weep.

'My older brother died and she was saying she didn't want to lose another son,' says Whyte. 'As bad as I was, I never wanted to disappoint my mum.

'I think my mum's only just finding out I was shot twice because when I was shot, I hid away until it was better and never told her.

'I must have watched John Rambo when I was a kid because I sterilised the wound with alcohol and took the bullet out with pliers and laid low for a couple of weeks.

'When she came to the prison in Bristol, she said, "Son, we've been through so much in life". I looked at my mum's face and the tears rolling down her cheeks and I felt bad and I felt ashamed.'

Soon after that, a friend introduced him to kickboxing and he was hooked.

'How does this thing work then?' he asked the man who ran the gym. 'You can get paid and beat people up and not go to prison?'

After that, in his early 20s, he moved into boxing. He had his first professional fight in May 2011. He has fought 22 times since and lost only to Joshua.

There are echoes here, of course, of the redemption song of the great American middleweight Bernard Hopkins, and of so many other fighters, who have been rescued from delinquency and recidivism and an early grave by the discipline of fighting.

For them, it has been a simple enough choice: death or prison or boxing.

Some would argue that boxing is hardly a refuge. 'It's not an easy game but it's a lot easier than what was planned out for me in life,' says Whyte.

You saw today that I gave a few and took a few but that's how it goes. It's still a lot easier than sitting in prison for 20 years or being a drug dealer waiting for the next deal to go down to make a hundred quid. Or just being dead. At least I'm here. It's been a struggle to get where I am but I have got the heart of 10 lions and I refuse to give up. I can still inspire people and change their lives.

'Winning a world title is part of my ambition but the ultimate goal is to inspire people.

'Let people see that it doesn't matter who ripped you off. Never let people put their doubt and their disbelief on you. Believe in yourself, work hard and dedicate yourself.

'I want a kid to look at me and say, "You know what, this man had no chance in life, but he stayed in there and he worked hard, he dedicated himself and he did it".'

[Chrismart]

A long read, but still

[Chrismart]

Lucas Browne on sparring Tyson Fury: "We had Tyson Fury come down for one session, so that was interesting... He did a spinning back elbow on me!"

[PensionKiller]

I believe Whyte may get KTFO. Any body who moves backwards will make it a boring fight vs Whyte, but I feel Browne will come forward and get the stoppage or at least 2 or 3 knock downs because Whyte is so flawed.