Notebook: Fury, Whyte all business, except for a tickle, as they finally face off
Meng-Pascal light heavy fight set; Quick hits; Show and tell
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Heavyweight champion Tyson Fury and British countryman Dillian Whyte, the WBC interim titleholder and mandatory challenger, had yet to see each other face to face since their fight was made in late January.
Whyte skipped the kickoff news conference on Feb. 28 in a snit over his contract terms from the record $41,025,000 purse bid Queensberry Promotions’ Frank Warren, Fury’s co-promoter with Top Rank, won, leaving Fury to go solo in the spotlight.
In fact, Whyte boycotted the entire promotion until last week when he and Warren worked out a contract amendment that didn’t raise his pay but gave him a few things he wanted, such as additional ticket access.
Now Whyte is fully engaged in the promotion, although he missed Tuesday’s media workout because of what organizers said was a travel issue with his private plane flying from his training camp in Portugal to London.
Finally, on Wednesday, Fury and Whyte were together to size each other up, talk up the fight in each other’s presence and pose for photos and videos at a news conference ahead of the fight, which will take place on Saturday (ESPN PPV in the U.S. for $69.99, BT Sport Box Office in the U.K., 2 p.m. ET) before an expected British record sell-out crowd of 94,000 at Wembley Stadium.
But instead of the nasty and profane back-and-forth Fury and former titleholder Deontay Wilder engaged in ahead of their 2021 fight of the year in October, Fury and Whyte were on their best behavior, professionals all the way.
Whyte (28-2, 19 KOs), 34, said his refusal to participate earlier in the promotion was just business.
“Stuff needed to get done. Obviously, the fight was signed, but there were other things behind the scenes that needed to get signed,” Whyte said. “Me and Frank got together. Credit due to him as me and my team were trying to pick up the phone for a long time to get stuff done.”
When the formal part of the news conference was over they shared a light-hearted moment when after a few seconds of an intense face-to-face staredown as they posed for their first photos together, Fury turned his frown upside down and tickled Whyte with both hands around the waist. He made baby sounds and laughed. Whyte took it in fun and also laughed and patted Fury on the shoulder. When the face off was over they warmly shook hands.
Previously, Whyte also shook hands with Warren and Top Rank president Todd duBoef, a sure sign that they’re all finally on the same page in terms of the business side of things.
But just because Fury (30-0-1, 22 KOs), 34, who will be making his eighth defense of the lineal title and second of the WBC belt, and Whyte showed good humor and a little tickle does not mean they plan to go easy on each other come fight night.
“We’ve had a great preparation. There are never any complaints from me,” Fury said. “We always do what we can do in training camps and do the best that we can do on the night. I’m sure Dillian Whyte’s had a great training camp as well. He’s a good fighting man. The fans are in for a real treat. I know Dillian. I know him personally, and he knows me. And we’re going to rock ‘n roll on fight night. We’re ready to throw down and treat us all to a hell of a barn storm.”
Whyte has been waiting for years for a title shot and is clearly the best heavyweight in the world who has yet to get a chance to fight for a world title. And he gets to do it at home.
“It means everything to me to be fighting in my home country, and especially because it’s for the world title at Wembley,” Whyte said. “It’s not too far from where I’m from. It means everything. It’s massive. It’s a moment I’ve been waiting for. It’s a big fight. Like Tyson said, we didn’t expect to be here. But I’m here, but I’ve taken risks time and time again. I’ve had a couple slip-ups along the way, but I’m here and I’m ready to go. You won’t hear any bullshit from me. I’m ready to go.”
Meng-Pascal finalized
Light heavyweight contender Meng Fanlong and former champion Jean Pascal will meet May 20 in the 12-round main event of the inaugural ProBox TV card at the company headquarters in Plant City, Florida.
ProBox TV is an upstart sports streaming and media company dedicated exclusively to boxing founded by onetime manager Gary Jonas. It will stream the full card.
In the co-feature, former featherweight titlist Xu Can (18-3, 3 KOs), 28, of China, will face Brandon Benitez (18-2, 7 KOs), 24, of Mexico, in a 10-rounder.
Fight Freaks Unite reported last month that Chinese southpaw Meng (17-0, 10 KOs), 34, and Montreal’s Pascal (35-6-1, 20 KOs), 39, were close to a deal after Meng’s fight with Sergey Kovalev due to headline a Triller event fell apart.
“I’m so excited to get back in the ring and face former world champion Jean Pascal,” Meng said. “This fight is so unique for a lot of different reasons. It's my first time as the main event fighter. It’s the first time I face a former world champion, and it’s the first time we will live stream in China. It’s also my first time fighting on ProBox, my home turf.”
Pascal has not fought since a split decision win over Badou Jack to retain his secondary title in December 2019. They were scheduled to meet in a rematch last June, but the fight was canceled and Pascal was stripped after he tested positive for four different banned substances in various random pre-fight VADA tests.
“It’s been a long time coming,” Pascal said of his return. “I’m back with a lot to prove and a fire under my ass. This fight with Meng is a great opportunity for me to get right back where I belong, the top of the division. He’s a good fighter. He’s undefeated for a reason, but he’s never been in with anybody like me. After this fight, he and Ahmed Elbiali will have something in common, losses to me in Florida in fights his people should have never made.”
Xu will be fighting for the first time Leigh Wood knocked him out in the 12th round to take his secondary WBA 126-pound belt last July in England.
Quick hits
England’s Mark Lyson will referee the Tyson Fury-Dillian Whyte heavyweight championship fight at Wembley Stadium on Saturday. There will be no British judges on the panel for one of the biggest fights in United Kingdom history. The panel will include Italy’s Guido Cavalleri, Mexico’s Juan Carlos Pelayo and Canada’s Robert Tapper, who scored Fury beating Deontay Wilder 114-112 in their first fight in December 2018 that was ruled a split draw. Cavalleri judged Whyte as a 115-112 winner over Oscar Rivas in July 2019. Lyson was the third man in the ring when Alexander Povetkin knocked out Whyte in their first fight in August 2020. Lyson also refereed Whyte’s sixth pro fight.
The WBA on Wednesday scheduled a purse bid for the junior middleweight title eliminator between Israil Madrimov and Michel Soro for April 29 via Zoom. Minimum bid is $110,000 and the split is 50-50. Promoters must pay a $7,500 fee to bid. The WBA ordered an immediate rematch in early March after the controversial ending of their Dec. 17 eliminator. Madrimov (8-0, 6 KOs), 27, of Uzbekistan, stopped Soro (35-3-1, 24 KOs), 34, of France, in the ninth round but did so with a series of punches way after the bell ended the round, which the referee claimed he did not hear. Soro protested and was granted a rematch.
The junior lightweight 10-rounder between Anthony Cacace and Jonathan Romero, slated for the Fury-Whyte PPV undercard, is off due to Romero’s visa issues. The fight has been replaced on the card by Ekow Essuman (16-0, 7 KOs) defending his British and Commonwealth welterweight titles against Darren Tetley (21-2, 9 KOs). They were moved from the main event of an April 29 Queensberry Promotions card to Saturday’s show.
Show and tell
Lennox Lewis was in the midst of his dominating second heavyweight title reign and coming off a one-sided rout of No. 1 contender David Tua. For his 10th defense Lewis was matched with decent contender Hasim Rahman, who had been knocked out by Tua a few years earlier. He was picked as a supposed non-threatening foe for Lewis to face in a fight at Carnival City Casino in Brakpan, South Africa, on the outskirts of Johannesburg.
The fight, billed as “Thunder in Africa,” would take place before dawn on Sunday morning South African time to accommodate HBO’s live prime time Saturday night telecast in the United States, and it was to that unusual backdrop that Rahman scored one of the most monumental upsets in heavyweight history when he landed a thunderbolt of a right hand square on Lewis’ chin and dropped him like sack of rocks for the shocking fifth-round knockout.
Although Lewis would regain the title seven months later in a court-ordered immediate rematch that Rahman tried to dodge, his loss in fight No. 1 was utterly shocking, but not if you were paying attention. Lewis had come into the fight at a then-career heavy 253½ pounds after a less than ideal training camp. While Rahman arrived in South Africa nearly a month before the fight and was in tip-top condition and focused, Lewis was the opposite and ill prepared for the 5,200-foot altitude. It showed just a few rounds into the fight. He did not arrive until 12 before the fight because the week before traveling to South Africa he was at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas with trainer Emanuel Steward filming fight scenes with Wladimir Klitschko for their brief appearance in the blockbuster movie Ocean’s 11.
In what I still consider the greatest fight pick of my career, I tabbed Rahman to knock Lewis out. Why, you ask? I was writing for USA Today and went to Las Vegas for two reasons. The first was to cover the Naseem Hamed-Marco Antonio Barrera fight. The second was to meet and conduct in-person interviews for a major feature I was writing on Klitschko and his brother, Vitali Klitschko, who were still largely unknown in the U.S. The MGM Grand Garden Arena, the site of Hamed-Barrera, was used early in fight week to film the Ocean’s 11 fight scenes, so it was there where I first met with the Klitschko brothers. During the day I spent with them for the piece I was writing it was extremely clear that Lewis was not at all thinking about his title defense two weeks later. I spent much of the day on the movie set and saw him goofing around and eating junk food. Then, on the morning of Hamed-Barrera, there was a Lewis-Rahman news conference for the U.S. press in Las Vegas for Hamed-Barrera. Lewis was there in person and Rahman joined via satellite from South Africa. Again, Lewis was obviously unfocused while Rahman looked and sounded like he was ready to fight that day. Between seeing Lewis on the movie set and seeing him and Rahman at the news conference I was positive Rahman was going to win the fight.
Rahman’s huge upset was on April 22, 2001 (April 21 in the United States) — 21 years ago on Friday (Thursday in the United States). Here is a scarce site poster and program in my collection.
Fury-Whyte photo: Mikey Williams/Top Rank
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Fury should win easy, Whyte's too flat footed.
The friendly and courteous exchanges between Fury and Whyte was a refreshing change. They both showed how professionals should act - well done to both lads.
I’m buying the PPV but I’m still peeved by the terrible undercard which is the worst I’ve seen on such a big event.
I’m glad there’s no BBBofC judges as the Taylor vs Catterall fight showed they can’t be trusted.
I wouldn’t have had BBBofC referee, Mark Lyson, either as I don’t think he’s up to refereeing a world title fight - this is the ref who counted out Charlie Edwards after Martinez smashed him while on the floor taking a knee - Lyson claimed not to have seen the offending punch so his eyesight has got to be very poor.
It took an on the spot decision by Mauricio Sulaiman, who was luckily there, to overrule the referee and declare it a no contest and that there would have to be a rematch.
The rematch didn’t happen as Edwards moved up because of problems making the weight but the whole debacle didn’t reflect well on Lyson and I’ve questioned his competence ever since.