Whyte: The WBC is protecting Wilder

Dillian Whyte is scheduled to face Oscar Rivas on July 20, and he aims for this fight to earn him mandatory status to the WBC Heavyweight Championship.

Whyte has been at odds with the boxing sanctioning body since being passed over for a title shot last year. The WBC made Dominic Breazeale, who fights Wilder on May 18, the mandatory challenger, while ordering Wilder face Luis Ortiz in a final eliminator. Instead of that fight, or an IBF-ordered fight with Kubrat Pulev, Whyte defeated Joseph Parker last summer before knocking out Dereck Chisora in December.

“I think the WBC is protecting Deontay Wilder,” Whyte told Express Sport. “Maybe because he’s the first reigning American champion in a long time or whatever. They definitely seem to protect him because the Breazeale vs [Eric] Molina fight isn’t even eligible because Molina was banned from all sport formally. They don’t even run a clean boxing programme so I don’t even understand how they could make someone like that compete. It’s crazy.”

Whyte also had failed negotiations with WBA/IBF/WBO/IBO heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua earlier this year. The two could have met back on April 13 at Wembley Stadium in London.

Whyte was scheduled to meet with WBC President Mauricio Sulaiman recently, and while Whyte says the meeting happened, he hasn’t heard back from the organization.

Meanwhile, in his own statement to Express Sport, Sulaiman claimed they are waiting to hear back from Whyte, meaning there’s a fair chance a win over Rivas will earn Whyte the status he so desires.

“I’ve won so many fights for the WBC, I’ve turned down the Anthony Joshua fight, one of the reasons I turned that down was because of the Breazeale fight and possibly Wilder,” Whyte said. “All of a sudden Breazeale is fighting Wilder. I’d back myself to beat any of them, Wilder, Fury and Joshua. The good thing is I’m not tied down to anyone. I work with Sky mostly but I can still work with ESPN, DAZN, BT Sports and Showtime. I haven’t spoke to the WBC in about three [or] four weeks, we’ve been emailing and texting and calling with no responses. They were supposed to make a decision two or three weeks ago and nothing, all we hear is nothing.”

Original Story: Express Sport