As Anthony Joshua and Jermaine Franklin get ready to announce their April 1 fight in London, Dillian Whyte is fuming.
Joshua is coming off the back of two losses to Oleksandr Usyk in which he lost and then failed to regain his unified heavyweight titles.
Franklin is best known to UK fans for his fight with Whyte in November of 2022. Whyte took it on the cards via unanimous decision despite a good showing from the American, and made it clear he wanted to move forward into bigger fights.
Whilst a rematch with ‘AJ’ has been touted by promoter Eddie Hearn – the pair faced off in 2015 with Joshua winning by KO – it has always been mentioned as a summertime scrap.
Whyte believes this is no good, and is now criticising the fact that Joshua wasn’t put in with him straightaway. He made his feelings known via SunSport.
“I am all right but facing the usual b******s, I just want to make some fights but it’s f***ing frustrating. Everyone was told, all the boxing fans, the winner of me and Franklin fights AJ, so this is a f***ed up thing. I would have been better off losing the Franklin fight and getting the AJ fight!”
In many ways it’s a hard point to argue with, but Joshua’s team may well say that with his new training set up Franklin is more suited for a comeback bout.
‘The Bodysnatcher’ called it ‘the battle of the fools.’
“I know DAZN need content for their subscribers but why choose to fight a low-profile American coming off a loss instead of having a massive British tear-up? It’s no surprise to me that they have chosen April 1 for this battle of the fools.”
Finally, Whyte believes that Hearn and co are ‘protecting’ Joshua from a potential fourth loss of his career in order to keep cashing in on his superstardom.
“I faced Franklin, the most dangerous and undefeated version of him, and beat him. Eddie was promising him many millions to fight AJ if he beat me.
“It’s protecting AJ because they all know if he loses again he will probably jack it in and a lot of people will be left with limp d***s in their hands.”
There is expected to be a press conference next week to formally announce the ‘AJ’-Franklin bout, whilst Whyte waits on the sidelines with no opponent in sight.