Dillian Whyte has finally signed his contract to fight Tyson Fury.
Sky Sports first reported the news, just past midnight, that will see ‘The Bodysnatcher’ challenge ‘The Gypsy King’ for the WBC World heavyweight title.
Whyte had been given an end of February 21 deadline but critically it had been set at local time in Mexico, the home of the WBC headquarters, which meant 12.00am was in fact 6am GMT.
No official comment or statement has been released from Whyte’s team or Fury’s.
Last month Queensberry Promotions won the purse bids to stage the fight with a record-breaking offer of just over $41 million dollars, trumping the effort of Matchroom.
The WBC had decreed that Whyte, the mandatory challenger and Interim belt holder, would receive 20% of the purse while 80% would go to Fury. It was a split that Whyte protested, with legal matters surrounding the split playing out in the background.
Frank Warren, who co-promotes Fury with Bob Arum, is aiming for the fight to take place on April 23 with Wembley Stadium the front-runner to stage the fight. Should the 90,000-seater home of the English national football team host the event it will be the first time that Fury and Whyte will have fought there. Cardiff’s Principality Stadium and West Ham’s London Stadium are also thought to be in the running.
Fury has spent the past couple of weeks poking fun at his potential opponent via social media as the clock counted down to the contract signing’s deadline day. Now, we wait and see what Whyte has to say on everything surrounding the fight.
Fury v Whyte will kick off another important period for the sport’s most illustrious division. With their fight now seemingly set to take place Oleksandr Usyk can get on with honouring the rematch clause he agreed to before taking Anthony Joshua’s three heavyweight titles from him last September. Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn has stated he expects to Usyk v Joshua 2 to take place in May.
When Fury v Whyte takes place, it will be the champion’s first fight since closing the book on his trilogy with Deontay Wilder five months ago. For the challenger this first world title opportunity will mark his own return since to action defeating Alexander Povetkin in their rematch last March.