The war of words between the WBC’s No.1 heavyweight contender Dillian Whyte and reigning champion Tyson Fury shows no sign of relenting.
In his latest broadside, Whyte (27-1, 18 KOs) has promised to punish Fury with a brutal body attack should the Londoner face the WBC king in a mandatory engagement early in 2021.
Whyte, a noted body-puncher who hurt Anthony Joshua downstairs in the second round of their December 2015 encounter, believes Deontay Wilder’s headhunting cost him dearly in his two fights with Fury. Especially, the first encounter where Fury rose from a heavy 12th round knockdown to clinch a hotly-debated draw on the scorecards.
Often dubbed ‘The Bodysnatcher’, Whyte is promising no such neglect.
“[Fury] knows Deontay Wilder doesn’t hit as hard as what everyone makes out and Deontay Wilder can’t body punch,” Whyte told Sky Sports News.
“Had Wilder been hitting him in the body, earlier in the [first] fight, he wouldn’t have been able to get up from that punch in the later rounds, but his body was fresh, his legs were fresh.
“There was no body punching going on, Wilder can only head hunt,” he continued. “You can shake the head punches off sometimes, but when your body is broken down and you’ve been hit up and down – that’s how you’ve got to fight Fury, you have to fight up and down. You can’t just head hunt.
“[Fury is] a tough guy, he gets up, but I’m going to be targeting head and body, relentless all night long, so it will be a different story.”
Over the weekend, Whyte and Fury clashed again on social media with the Londoner appearing to claim that he had floored ‘The Gypsy King’ in a previous sparring session. Past sparring, of course, has little bearing on a boxing match, but that didn’t stop Whyte claiming a psychological edge.
“He’s got all these skills and all this other stuff, but I’m an animal and I’ll come to fight, simple as that,” said Whyte. “He has been in the ring with someone like me because I sparred him many times. I was very inexperienced at the time and I still gave him work. A lot of work!”
Whyte must first defeat former WBA champion Alexander Povetkin, who he meets live on Sky Sports Box Office on August 22, while Fury has a contracted trilogy clash with Wilder set to take place later this year.
A projected mega-fight with WBA Super, WBO and IBF champion Joshua could still mean Fury relinquishes his WBC crown rather than face Whyte early in 2021.