Tyson Fury will be fighting in March but he WON’T be making a defense of his WBC heavyweight title against his mandatory interim WBC champion Dillian Whyte.
It’s important that Fury not lose his next fight because he’s waiting to face the winner of the April rematch between Oleksandr Usyk and Anthony Joshua.
The payday Fury will get fighting the winner of the Usyk vs. Joshua II fight will be enormous, which is another good reason why he’s better off not facing Whyte.
It’s unclear whether Fury will vacate his WBC title or if he’ll wait for the World Boxing Council to strip him.
Whyte’s promoter Eddie Hearn is saying that Dillian will definitely have the WBC title on the line in his next fight in 2022, and he believes
‘The Body Snatcher’ will be elevated to the new champion if Fury chooses not to face him next. If Fury doesn’t vacate his WBC title, it would mean he’ll be stripped.
According to promoter Frank Warren, Whyte (28-2, 19 KOs) will be tied up with his arbitration case until March, and Fury (31-0-1, 22 KOs) will not wait for him.
It’s not expected that Fury will take on a dangerous heavyweight like Joe Joyce, Daniel Dubois, Filip Hrgovic, or Frank Sanchez.
Those guys would be a lot of problems for Fury, and he’s likely looking for a low-risk stay busy fight to keep him sharp while he waits for the smoke to clear from the Joshua vs. Usyk 2 rematch.
If Fury were to wait on Whyte, he wouldn’t be able to defend against him until June, and that’s unacceptable. Fury already missed out on fights due to his arbitration case with Deontay, which resulted in him missing a year and a half of activity.
Fury’s promoter Bob Arum wants to match him against Andy Ruiz Jr. or Joseph Parker next. He also has some other heavyweights he’s looking at.
Whoever it is, it’ll need to be a well-known fighter that U.S boxing fans are familiar with because the contest will be shown on ESPN.
Whyte isn’t well known in the U.S, so the bar is low for Arum to pick a more recognizable opponent for Fury to face than him.
Even someone like Chris Arreola would be more known to the average American boxing fan than Whyte, so Arum has an easy job getting someone for Fury to face.
Good options for Fury’s stay-busy fight in March:
- Michael Hunter
- Efe Ajagba
- Murat Gassiev
- Zhang Zhilei
“So Tyson will fight, but NOT for the WBC title. They won’t. The arbitrator will in March,” said Frank Warren to iFL TV. “That’s when the deadline is for the hearing [for Whyte in his arbitration hearing].
“Tyson can’t sit around and wait for that to happen. So he’s going to fight. He may defend his Ring belt, we’ll see, but he’ll defend sometime in March. That’s the direction he wants to go in.
“He can’t be inactive because of the problems with the arbitration between the WBC and Whyte,” said Warren.
“We’ve got to sort out an opponent first before we move forward,” said Warren about Fury’s next fight.