Your Hottest Takes:

Here you go:

https://www.fightful.com/mma/wbc-pr...-rejected-title-eliminator-against-tyson-fury

https://www.badlefthook.com/2018/4/24/17277520/wbc-orders-luis-ortiz-dillian-whyte-eliminator

Whyte did not fight the Ortiz eliminator. He kept his ranking but got bypassed.

Go look through all the history and it seems whenever he’s on the verge of something, Whyte doesn’t go through with it — he either sues or appeals. He should just have fought. Or not, which was his choice. But you can’t keep turning down eliminator and then ask why you’re not getting title shots.

Didn’t he outright turn down a voluntary challenge of AJ?

Didn’t he refuse to take the purse bid for an eliminator vs. Pulev (which was almost twice what his own promoter bid)?

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport...thony-joshua-deontay-wilder-ibf-a8286011.html

Truth is, Eddie Hearn for a very long time used Dillian as a human shield for AJ — if you want to fight AJ you have to beat Whyte first. And Whyte accepted that role.

 

This doesn't really address any of the points I made in my last post. I question whether you actually read what you quoted because it seems to me like you just jumped at the chance to word vomit your frustrations regarding Whyte.

There is a reason Whyte passed on Pulev, and I didn't even mention Ortiz.

https://www.espn.com/boxing/story/_...ns-purse-bid-kubrat-pulev-dillian-whyte-fight

"Pulev is entitled to 75 percent of the winning bid ($1,125,083.25), and Whyte will receive the remaining 25 percent ($375,027.75)."

In other words, he's being offered Brian Minto money to take on the once-conquered, IBF #1 contender, when he's decidedly the A-side of that equation. It goes without saying, a potential loss to Pulev would jeopardize many millions of dollars against the likes of AJ, Wilder, and Fury. You're setting a standard for Whyte that no living, thinking boxer would or could abide by.


When it comes to Fury timeline matters (he's bipolar). Whyte agreed to fight Fury. It was Fury who initially, to use your word, "balked" at the prospect of facing Whyte. He said it was a pointless fight and that he wouldn't do it unless the diamond belt was on the line. This was at the time this match was being discussed as an eliminator. When that hurdle had been cleared, he reneged. It was only when Dillian had Rivas lined up that Fury said he had changed his mind.
https://www.badlefthook.com/2019/5/...yte-pissed-over-tyson-fury-turning-down-fight

 

OK, spell it out to me in plain English exactly what your point is about Dillian Whyte?

I take it as you saying he deserved title shots he did not get.

I’m pointing out a pattern across his entire career where sanctioning bodies say ‘If you want the title shot, DO THIS, EXACTLY THIS’ and instead he whined about not being able to get a shot rather than doing those things.

I posted a link to where Whyte informed the WBC he would not fight an eliminator against Fury and you come back and say ‘well in a different timeline blah blah blah.’ I’m talking about him being told he can have a title shot if he beats Fury and he said no thanks. There’s absolutely no dispute about that.

As far as Pulev, Whyte can say he’s the A-side but per the rules he was not. It was a purse bid. Whyte’s OWN PROMOTER offered just over half what the winning bid was, so if he had won it then Dillian would have been fighting the exact same fight for half Minto money, as you want to put it.

You say: “He had a reason for turning down Pulev.” I say: “And there’s also a reason he kept not getting title shots he believed he deserved — because he kept turning down eliminators.” Two things can be true. But if he wants a title shot and they say ‘beat this guy,’ the answer can’t be ‘only if I get paid what I think I’m worth’ if the purse bid split isn’t structured that way. His promoter could have offered Pulev a greater sum than the purse bid and given Dillian more money too, but he didn’t. So blame his own promoter for letting it go to purse bids, and for only bidding a little more than half of what the winning bid ended up being.

If Whyte wanted the title shot, he could have taken the (oh poor, poor Whyte) $300K+, beaten Pulev and made a lot more in a title shot next time.

So, again, stated simply in one paragraph, what is the point you’re trying to make here?

Here is my point: Dillian has cried about not getting title shots much of his career. At the same time, he’s been offered a title shot he declined and numerous final eliminators which, had he won them, would have gotten that title shot. So as far as I’m concerned, he doesn’t have a leg to stand on because his whole thing is ‘I’m entitled, I shouldn’t have to ____.’ Well, if you don’t have to do it, then don’t do it … but don’t cry at the unfairness of it all if you won’t do the simple steps that are lined out with the opportunity to get what you say you want.

 

Not a different timeline at all, what? It was literally months in the past. Whyte accepted the WBC's proposal, per the link. Tyson said he didn't want the fight and got the Wilder rematch anyway. Whyte had a scheduled fight (that would have made him mandatory) but would afterwards be caught for using PEDs, effectively taking him out of the picture.

A purse bid means it defaults to that split and those rules. Whyte's promoter wouldn't have negotiated a 75-25 split in favor of the other guy, are you ok? To be honest, even if the Whyte party had won, I doubt he would have taken it, as the potential earnings would have been a fraction of the kind of money Whyte was used to, fighting similar talents in Parker and Chisora.

My point is only incidentally linked with Whyte; I'm using him for illustration. I wouldn't have even mentioned him had I known people had such charged emotions about the guy.

 

I want to hone in on this specifically. This is out-of-touch, fanciful thinking. Whyte made MILLIONS fighting Rivas, fulfilling the same scenario you just described. He would have finally had his shot if only he wasn't a drug cheat.

Post-scandal he again made MILLIONS fighting Povetkin x2 during the height of COVID. He got his payday against Fury for the title shortly after.

Welterweight contenders would be insulted by that type of money.

 

Max Baer took a dive against Braddock and the media turned a blind eye to it. Watch that fight clearly looks fixed. More so than Sharkey vs Primo which the media howled about for decades.

 

Once again I ask: What is your point?

As for your interpretation of what’s in the link you posted (on Whyte-Fury eliminator) and the one I posted, the one I posted has the head of the WBC saying Whyte turned it down. The one you posted is a few weeks AFTER the head of the WBC saying he ordered the mandatory and Whyte turned it down — it has promoter Eddie Hearn doing what Eddie does, talking. It does not say Whyte reversed his position and notified the WBC and that he now wants it.

Eddie says ‘we saw a video and the WBC saw the video, let’s make a fight,’ then ‘we saw another video and Tyson says he’s not interested.’ It DOES NOT say ‘Whyte has formally rescinded his previous position that he doesn’t want the eliminator and has informed the WBC of such, we have made an offer to Fury and are prepared to go to purse bids to make this happen.’ It’s just ‘we saw one video, then we saw another.’ That’s not how business is conducted, even in the Instagram/TikTok world.

I’m begging you, man — tell me what your point is.

If you point is Whyte turned down eliminators but made good money without them, OK, I’m not sure what that means or why it matters, but I don’t think there’s anything to debate there. But your point seemed earlier to have been that Whyte somehow got screwed by the system, and my point is he didn’t participate in the system (by fighting the eliminators) so he didn’t get screwed.

As far as what welterweights would be insulted by, at least three promotional outfits (Hearn, Pulev’s promoter and the one that won the bid, which promotes neither Whyte nor Pulev) made bids and the winning bid was almost twice the second-best, which was Whyte’s promoter. So if he thinks that fight is worth so much, why didn’t any promoter in the world bid what he thinks it was worth so he could be paid accordingly? The bids were fair and people were shocked that the Entertainment & Sports outfit’s winning bid was so high.

But regardless of what kind of money Whyte made by taking another fight instead of that one, the fact is he did not take the eliminator and has no gripe that he did not get the rewards that come from winning an eliminator. So I have no idea, once again, what point you’re trying to make here.

 

I believe Max broke 1 or both of his hands in that fight.

 

Muhammad Ali should have continued his career after his excellent showing against Berbick, perhaps all the way to the rise of Lennox Lewis. Perhaps beyond that.

 

I’m skeptical of that, Baer also had the same excuse for fight with Joe Louis. Funny how Primo clearly hurt his ankle against Baer in their fight and you rarely heard about it as the reason for his poor performance against Max. The media really controlled the narrative of the fight game. Watch Baer Braddock it’s farcical. Something is fishy.

 

According to this article announcing his return to the ring vs. Victor Flores, he "suffered a fractured leg and several chipped vertebrae."

 

Well, if you had just followed the thread instead of reacting blindly to every mention of Whyte, you would know that the debate was originally a comparison of The Ring's ranking method to the various sanctioning bodies' methods. My point is that, while not perfect, The Ring does not have as many headscratchers as do the other organizations. I chose the current landscape, where Huni and Wardley are rated over Joshua, for instance, as the main thrust, with past examples like the WBC's mishandling of the Whyte situation to support my claim.

And yes, absolutely, Whyte was screwed. How can you be #1 contender for however many number of years, according to the WBC, without ever being given a chance at the title? It's true Whyte did complain about and declined to compete in WBC-ordered eliminators, and the same was true in reverse. Again, Breazeale and Fury bypassed Whyte for Wilder. However, only Whyte was ever left out of the loop.

https://www.skysports.com/boxing/news/12183/11723640/whyte-vs-rivas-dillian-whyte-questions-tyson-furys-comments-about-possible-fight#:~:text=Whyte vs Rivas: Dillian Whyte questions Tyson Fury's comments about possible fight,-Watch Dillian Whyte&text=Dillian Whyte says Tyson Fury,he would take the fight.&text=Fury initially played down the,should take these comments seriously.&text="He says one thing today,him out in six rounds'.&text="He's always contradicting whatever he,get a bit of traction."

Breazeale was declared a mandatory on the back of a win against the #12 contender. As I recall, he was never above #4 in the rankings.

Meanwhile, the WBC kept Dillian as #1 (their choice), never giving him a look in, even though he was fighting top ten guys in Parker and Chisora. They kept throwing hoop after hoop for Whyte to jump through, such that at one time he was simultaneously WBC silver, diamond, and interim champion, as well as their number one contender. But, wouldn't you know it, he just couldn't close on the coveted (and made-up) "number one mandatory". I guess Eric Molina was unavailable.

It's a joke. The spot to challenge for a world title no longer earned but instead negotiated.

Deontay Wilder, the champion at that time, made, what, two mandatory defenses in his five-year tenure? Is that fair?

The Pulev situation that you're so keen to bring up has been explained more than once. Whyte fought slightly inferior and markedly superior competition for 10x the money with the same stakes- the promise of mandatory. There probably wasn't much confidence in that encounter as a moneymaker, which is precisely the point.

 

I think you feel a lot more strongly about the impact the plane crash had on Pep than I do, Pat. I'm not certain if the plane crash caused Pep injuries from which he never fully recovered. What I do know is that prior to it Pep was 107-1-1 and after it he went 122-10.

What those numbers don't tell is the quality of the opposition Pep beat. The best FW Pep has a winning record against is Chalky Wright, who he went 4-0 with. All 4 x wins before the plane crash. The next best is Sal Bartolo who Pep beat 3 out of 3, again all before the plane crash. He also beat arguably the BW GOAT Manuel Ortiz, borderline ATG LW Willie Joyce & Phil Terranova, all before the plane crash.

Post the plane crash he was clearly still a brilliant fighter holding 1 win out of 4 over Saddler, Paddy DeMarco & Ray Famechon.

Again, I don't know if the plane crash had any impact on Pep's future career (my guess is, brilliant as he still was, he was never quite as good, but it's just a guess), I'm not against the idea that the Saddler from Pep 1 would have beaten any version of Pep (he may well have done, I don't know), but I do know that Pep's win/loss ratio was better pre the plane crash than it was after, against on the whole stronger opposition, Saddler aside. Pep has 122 x wins post the plane crash, but with a few notable exceptions, they're mostly over non world class & very modest opposition.

Sure, Saddler's wins over Pep were for the world title & Charles's over Moore's were non-title fights. I agree Saddler's wins were in more significant fights at the time. If that forms part of your criteria for determining the greatness of the wins, and it wouldn't be unreasonable if so, then fair enough. If your criteria is based on the standard of the vanquished opponent, again not unreasonable, then imo, Charles clearly has the upper hand. As mentioned 9-months after Saddler's 3rd victory over him, Pep was stopped in 6-rounds (3 quicker than Saddler managed) by Tommy Collins. The same Collins who was stopped in 10-rounds, whilst behind on points, vs the 53-49-5 Teddy Davis just 6-fights later. Pep just wasn't an elite fighter any longer. Tbf, Saddler himself was past prime by Pep 4. He went into that fight on a loss and went 15-7 for the remainder of his career, including losing his next 3. These two P4p ATGs, the greatest FWs of all time, just weren't elite fighters anymore by the time of their 4th fight.

Archie Moore was 32-years old for the first Charles fight & 34 for the third. Charles 1 was Moore's 97th professional bout & Charles 3 was his 110th. He wasn't green or pre his physical prime. Yet his 10-year reign lay ahead of him, so neither was he past prime. He was prime for all 3 contests. DQ's & his 3 x losses to Charles aside, Moore went 62-2-3 either side of his series with Charles, with both losses avenged. During that time he beat, in chronological order, Holman Williams, Jack Chase, Curtis Sheppard, Bert Lytell, Jimmy Bivins x 3, Oakland Billy Smith x 2, Bob Satterfield and Harold Johnson.

Yes, Charles only stopped Moore 1 out of 3 and 1 of the other 2 was close. The other was a possible 10-0 shut out. Most importantly of all, when it comes to my own criteria of appraising the historical greatness of wins using the benefit of hindsight, the Moore Charles beat 3 out of 3, wasn't just better than the Pep that Saddler beat for the second, and especially the third, time, he was on a completely different level. By their 4th contest, neither Saddler nor Pep were Saddler & Pep anymore.

To finish, again, my objection wasn't centred around Pep getting injured in the plane crash & never being the same again. My guess is this was the case, but I don't know & don't feel especially strongly about it, I wouldn't have quoted you to disagree on this point. Where I disagree strongly is that Saddler's 3 x wins over Pep were the best 3 wins any one fighter in history holds, assuming the quality of the vanquished opponent at the time of the wins is the determining factor. As referenced above, I don't even think they were the best 3 x wins over the same opponent in history, let alone the 3 x best wins any individual fighter has. Not if the state of the protagonists relative to their respective primes is material to assessing the greatness of the wins.

 

Although I don't always agree on your modern approach to boxing, this is a very good post.

 

This is a very good thread, I'll try get something into it later on.