Colin Hart: Dillian Whyte a disgrace for sulking over Tyson Fury purse… £6m is more than Usyk got for beating Joshua
DILLIAN WHYTE, an ingrate if ever there was one, has not only thrown his dummy out of the pram but is continuing to behave like a spoiled brat.
Whyte is getting £6million to challenge Tyson Fury for his WBC world heavyweight title — which would rise to £9m if he should win — at Wembley Stadium on April 23.
That’s more than what Oleksandr Usyk was paid when he relieved Anthony Joshua of his WBA, IBF and WBO belts six months ago.
Yet Whyte, who outrageously believes he’s being short-changed, is stamping his foot and sulking at his Portuguese training camp.
To register his displeasure he has decided to take industrial action by refusing to help promote the richest fight ever staged in Britain.
His intransigence began a couple of weeks ago when Whyte demanded a private plane to fly him to London and back to Portugal to attend a press conference with Fury to announce the date and venue for their history-making clash.
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Promoter Frank Warren called his bluff and agreed to his request. But even that couldn’t persuade him to turn up.
Unbelievably, he also insisted his face be removed from fight posters as it infringed his image rights.
Disdainful Dillian has made it clear he intends to boycott all his obligations throughout the week building up to the fight.
It means he won’t be taking part in the public workout, the final pre-fight press conference or the face-to-face with Fury on BT Sport.
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There are no mitigating circumstances for Whyte’s disgraceful behaviour. He not only has a duty to those enabling him to become a multi-millionaire but also to fans paying to watch him at Wembley and on pay-per-view TV.
I know what the great British and US heavyweights like Sir Henry Cooper, Lennox Lewis, Frank Bruno, Mike Tyson, Larry Holmes, Joe Frazier and George Foreman would think about Whyte’s attitude.
And Muhammad Ali, the most loquacious communicator of them all, must be spinning in his grave.
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I cannot understand Dillian. He has campaigned incessantly for years to fight for the richest prize.
He’s hardly a household name and I would have thought he couldn’t wait to sell himself to the public.
Not that sales have suffered because of Whyte’s non-appearance. It took a mere three hours for the 85,000 tickets to be snapped-up.
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The sell-out crowd will be spending £13m — a Wembley record take for a single event.
To think not that long ago Tyson was a hate figure. Now he is loved and has turned himself into the most entertaining one-man show sport has ever seen in this country.
As a result of his unforgettable trilogy against Deontay Wilder he has also captured the imagination of the public across the Atlantic.
As he said: “If Tyson Fury was to fight his own shadow, it would sell.”
Whyte should take heed of 19th century American entrepreneur P.T. Barnum, who once said: “Without publicity, a terrible thing happens — NOTHING.”