A punch from the gods!? **** off! That was calculated premeditation from Povetkin, he planned it and executed it. Whyte just isn't very good. A thug with an attitude, a product of that conman E Hearn. Chisora, too. Neither are remotely close to world-class.
Whyte's a bit like Chisora, he lets himself go between periods of inactivity. Balloons up , and finds himself having to shed it off at the last minute. Maybe he does have a fat burner problem, but he always starts strong and starts to slow down later rounds, where he starts getting easy to hit.
Getting KO'd again, is inevitable for Whyte, his defense is very bad and unrepairable. Usually when fighters get KO'd multiple times, they are shot, they lose the willingness to engage in exchanges and result to boxing more and get KO'd or stopped sooner or later.
You’re missing the point though. it IS acceptable to lose. I’m not saying he should retire because he’s purely not good enough, I’m saying he should retire because of a whole bunch of things. He has made 10s of millions - unlike the other contenders you speak of. Most of them are fighting to earn a living or for their futures. Dillian doesn’t need that. He’s fit, healthy and has millions in the back from the PPV’s. He’s not going to win a world title, he doesn’t need any more money, so really, what is the point in him carrying on?
Not sure you lads caught the bit of a post fight interview with Hearn (I think it was when he was talking to Costello on 5live) and he said that Whyte was still showing that lion heart by trying to get up after being floored. The bull that pours out of his mouth is unreal at times. Whyte was put into the recovery position and was helped up after a few minutes. No shame in that btw, I’m pointing out the spin despite the reality.
If you want spin - and it’s lapped up by everyone here, especially the Joshua detractors, “Dillian Whyte nearly stopped Anthony Joshua.” He hit him with one punch and AJ recovered and demolished him BUT before that even happened people have failed to acknowledge that Whyte was lucky to get out of the first round! He was battered from pillar to post, then that bit of argy bargy after the bell knocked Joshua’s concentration a bit, hit (the apparently glass jawed) Joshua with his best punch and still got sparked out cold. He’s lived off that one punch for years and people will tell you “Dillian was green then”, so was Joshua. They’ve both improved but there was an absolute gulf to begin with - which doesn’t get told.
Spin and narrative is all sky and match room do twenty me old mucker. They’ve got it down to a finely tuned art, fair play to em. I watched the full Whyteleafe fight on YouTube last night, the amount of pyrotechnics and laser lighting they used on this production was unprecedented. Mood lighting too. Then a load of fireworks for some unknown reason. Not just a few, an absolute truckload. More than New Year’s Eve. Eddie raised the bar here, wrote a cheque for a cheeky hundred grand on fireworks, made a statement, gave the ppv buyers some REAL bang for their buck. And what a statement it was. Beautiful show of controlled, colourful explosions. Captured the spirit of boxing perfectly. Real talk now. It highlighted what many here have been saying for a while, Whyteleafe like AJ before him is ALL about packaging over content. Wrap it up in some shiny paper and bang a 19.95 price tag on it and people will think they are buying something special. MAYBE THEY ARE. Or maybe one day they realise they’re watching a man who’s best win is shot old Lucas Browneleafe, in there with a beyond shot to pieces old Eastern European midget. As long as the sky addicts keep subscribing, expect more and more tassles on the present each time, and a bigger and bigger steamer inside the box.
But Ruiz caught Joshua with a punch from the gods. Who are these mysterious gods that keep knocking out Eddie's hyped up boxers?
Whyte needs to acknowledge how good technically Povetkin is rather than thinking he has to just not get caught again. It was a simple slip and uppercut, Whyte needs more movement and to be able to stop Povetkin getting as close to him. AJ was able to keep Povetkin off him enough to deal with him and Fury would be able to do it even easier.
Joshua could have dealt with him very easily that night mate if he’d just kept making Whyte chew on the jab and straight right. He let emotion come in and you could tell that simply beating him was not enough, he wanted to smash him up...hence the getting caught with that shot. You’re right though, apart from that moment it was a one sided beat down.
I liked watching Joshua in those earlier days. Dubois reminds me of him in that period at the moment, it will be really interesting to see how he gets on when he eventually steps up. Joshua was so raw in that Whyte fight and I remember it being a fun fight at the time.
I think Chisora 2 is Whyte's best win. On paper it's Parker and then probably Rivas, but there was too much controversy against Parker, and a fair whiff around the Rivas one as well.