Frank Warren wondered aloud Tuesday if Dillian Whyte’s absence was about more than money.
Tyson Fury’s co-promoter thinks the unbeaten WBC heavyweight champion is in Whyte’s head. That, according to Warren, might explain what Warren deemed an otherwise inexplicable choice by Whyte to remain at his training camp in Portugal, rather than traveling to London to promote one of the biggest events in British boxing history.
Warren thus took the opportunity to admonish Whyte for failing to do his part to hype their pay-per-view showdown, scheduled for April 23 at Wembley Stadium in London, also the site of the press conference Tuesday.
“We are where we are, but that’s just not right,” Warren said from his seat on the dais. “We are where we are, but Dillian Whyte isn’t. He’s in Portugal. He should be here. It’s disgraceful that he’s not here. It’s not professional. If somebody else had won a purse bid, we woulda helped to make that work, whether it’s Tyson or anybody, and he’s done it. And he goes to the press conference. This is madness.”
Warren and Fury’s other co-promoter, Bob Arum, were well aware Whyte wouldn’t attend this press conference to officially launch this promotion. Whyte (28-2, 19 KOs), who is dissatisfied with the 80-20 purse split approved by the WBC, wants a portion of pay-per-view revenue to help account for the 10-percent difference from his purse split with Fury (31-0-1, 22 KOs) and the standard 70-30 split that favors champions in almost all title matches mandated by the WBC.
“I don’t wanna bore everybody,” Warren said. “I’m gonna tell you as quickly as I can. WBC put the fight out for negotiations against a mandatory challenger. We couldn’t reach certain agreed terms. We went to purse bids. We’ve won the purse bids. We then had to fulfill certain criterias for the purse bid, which we done, ticked all the boxes. He then signed a contract, which he left right to the last minute before he put in. And now he’s trying to renegotiate. Well, that’s why we had a period to agree to terms. So, that’s where we got to it.
“And one of the things was that he wanted a private jet to fly him and out today. But we said yesterday, ‘We’ll do that,’ in writing, ‘We’ll do that.’ Then they started adding other stuff to it. They didn’t even wanna let us use his photograph on a poster. You cannot use his image rights. I’ve never heard anything like it in my life. … I’ve never experienced it. I’ve never heard of a fighter not showing up for a press conference for a big fight.”
Even without upside from pay-per-view sales, Whyte will earn at least $7,384,500, which amounts to 20 percent of Warren’s winning bid – $41,025,000 – minus the 10 percent placed in escrow as a bonus for the winner. Fury’s guarantee is $29,538,000.
Barring a draw or a no-contest, Fury or Whyte will earn an additional $4,102,500 for winning.
An incredulous Warren pointed out that thanks to his whopping winning bid, Whyte will make much more for facing Fury than challengers in other high-profile heavyweight title fights that have taken place in the United Kingdom in recent years.
“He’s getting, let me just refer to my notes here – he’s getting eight times more than Tyson got to fight [Wladimir] Klitschko [as an] unbeaten fighter, eight times more,” Warren said. “He’s getting more than [Anthony] Joshua got paid to fight [Charles] Martin. He’s getting more than [Oleksandr] Usyk got to fight Joshua. Champions bank on themselves to win. That’s what they do to become the king. You win the title, you get the money. The 20 percent is there. Any good fighters, like Usyk did, went and beat Joshua, now he’s in the big time. [Andy] Ruiz done the same thing. Tyson did the same thing [against Klitschko].”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
