Whyte was brill during that period where fury was off radar, he and Joshua carried the flag for Brit heavyweights and he did it well
Comon mate Slugger Whyte was facing the the Sky at Matchroom HQ and Wembley Stadium against a small old man and a skilled boxer not renowned for power. If Anthony Joshua was not around, he would have been the poster boy for British Heavyweight Boxing mediocrity along with Del Chisora, David Haye, David Price and Dave Allen.
He’d have got a last payday and maybe disappeared into the horizon - the problem now is that he still seems to want a fight
"Even worse he put Wilder in the same bracket as AJ and Fury." On planet Mitch, Babic runs through Wilder. It's because Whyte doesn't have an ideological agenda against Wilder. He knows that Wilder did far better against Fury than he did (Whyte didn't land a single headshot of any significance and got completely scrambled by a non-flush shot). Whyte also knows there is every chance that Ortiz would have beaten him. He'd have never got to 42-0-1 in Wilder's position and he knows it.
Wilder at any point from 2016-2021 absolutely obliterates Whyte, that is not even in question. Clearly Wilder since that 3rd Fury fight is damaged goods. If the fight was to happen today it would be a coin toss. But if you compare them during their prime years I doubt any more than 10% of boxing experts would put Whyte above Wilder.
He fought tough fights and didn’t just sit and wait and wait. Always respected him for that but if he’s a drug cheat then I don’t like him. I also don’t like Canelo, Benn, Fury etc though so I am consistent. Seems some re forgiven for drugs but others who people already may not like are not.
Wasn't Eddie that gave him by far his biggest pay day though , wasn't Eddie that won a purse bid with a world record bid for one of his fights either.
Whyte gets a lot of stick, but I don't think he's as bad as some make out. His drug taking is inexcusable, obviously, but he did have a decent run at one point. Yes, he is deluded (the clip in the OP being a prime example), but most boxers are delusional. They have to be. That's a decent run for a non world champion. Yes, Whyte got lucky with Eddie Hearn promoting him as some avoided beast and getting him PPV's he didn't deserve, but what is he supposed to do? Turn the offers down? Considering that run was pre Saudi money when every decent HW was avoiding each other, that's a good a run seen for a non world champion in recent years.
Historically, Whyte is British level, but considering we are in a relatively weak HW era with only Usyk, Fury, possibly AJ, and if you are being generous, Wilder, being genuine world class, then Whyte is considered world class on the basis that at one point he was a genuine top 10 contender.
Whyte top 5 guys he beat: Parker Rivas Povetkin Chisora Helenius Wilder top 5 guys he beat: Stiverne Ortiz Breazeale Duhaupas Areola Is there that much in it?
I remember at one point we almost had whyte vs h fury for the British and whyte vs pulev in an ibf eliminator. Both fights would have been fun at the time. Shame they didn’t happen. Any word on who whyte is fighting in September? Who’s his promoter these days? They did a terrible job of promoting whyte vs hammer that’s for sure, nobody even knew it happened
It's often claimed (with significant justification) that Wilder has a weak resume relative to some of his contemporaries or his status as a long-reigning titlist. But it's interesting to speculate: how would Whyte have done against Wilder's opponents? Let's make the cutoff Fury-Wilder 2. Let's assume (and it's by no means guaranteed) that an A-side Whyte beat Wilder's first 39 opponents, with the biggest threats probably being Stiverne 1, Arreola and Duhaupas. The problem is that a 39-0 Whyte comes away from it taking significantly more punishment than Wilder did, due to his relative lack of power, closer range style, greater inclination to brawl (including in gym wars), inferior physical attributes and tendency to come in fat. The Helenius fights demonstrate this principle: Wilder got him out inside 1 and took almost no damage, Whyte went all 12 and took dozens of punches. Whereas Wilder stopped all of his first 32 opponents inside 4 rounds, 18 inside 1 round, Whyte went the 4 round distance with three of his first four opponents, who were barely (if at all) better than Wilder's early opponents. Stiverne was regarded as completely done when Wilder erased him in 1 without taking a punch but an even more diminished version went 6 with Joyce and landed quite a few shots, which would have probably been Whyte's experience. Breazeale lasted about two minutes with Wilder but Whyte vs Breazeale would have been a prolonged and punishing war. So by the time Whyte got to top 5 ranked undefeated big punching skilled southpaw Ortiz he would have been a shopworn fighter (as he arguably was at 27-1 when he got iced with one shot by Povetkin, who was officially older than Ortiz from the 2nd Wilder fight) and his title defence streak ends at 6. If Whyte had somehow managed to overcome Ortiz in a life and death war, Fury would have schooled and stopped him as he did a few years later and Whyte's streak ends at 7. There is virtually zero chance that Whyte would have made it to 10 defences. I think this is part of the thinking behind Rummy's Corner's frequent claim that "10 consecutive defences is no easy feat".
To their credit, how Hearn and Sky made a fighter as limited as Whyte a PPV attraction is unbelievable work. He was doing 4/500k buys as the A side at one point.
