Dillian Whyte has stated while talking to Talksport that he would be willing to accept a fight on August 12th to fight rival and former two-weight world champion Anthony Joshua at the 02 Arena in London.
Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing, who promotes both heavyweights, stated earlier this month that he wanted to explore the opportunities for a rematch between the pair following their December 2015 encounter at the same venue. Joshua would defeat Whyte in seven rounds in a shootout classic where Joshua was rocked and wobbled on multiple occasions. Whytes defeat to Joshua would also see him take the first loss of his career at that point of his career. Whyte returned to the ring last December with a laboured points win over Jermaine Franklin following a knockout defeat to Tyson Fury in his maiden world title opportunity last April at Wembley Stadium.
Joshua is on the comeback trail following his two back-to-back defeats against Oleksandr Usyk, in which he lost and failed to recapture his unified world heavyweight titles in London and Saudi Arabia, respectively. Like Whyte, Joshua returned in April against Franklin, laboured to a unanimous points verdict.
Whyte is willing to proceed with the fight but has insisted that he does not feel the offer is genuine due to the “disappearance” of Hearn in his words. Hearn conceded earlier this week that a rematch was looking unlikely due to the purse demands of Whyte, who was looking for a £ 10 million payday while the official offer to Whyte was lodged at £ 3 million.
Asked if he would accept the offer he’s been made. Whyte replied: “100 per cent, of course, I would; I wanna fight AJ and beat him.
“They wanna use my name as a scapegoat to say, ‘Oh, we tried to fight Dillian Whyte but we couldn’t make it.’
“If they wanted to fight me, Eddie Hearn could’ve made the fight.
“Of course, I do [feel disrespected by Hearn] - why are you throwing my name around and doing a million interviews about fighting me when you’re not actually negotiating the fight?”
Whyte also added that he has had little communication with Hearn over the last month and that his only contact with the promoter regarding the contest has been via email.
"The fight's just collapsed, there's been no communication on the fight.
"It's just weird, it just never seemed real from the start. AJ's in a position of transition and they don't want him to have serious fight, but they're trying to keep his name good and make it look like he's trying to have big fights.
"We've had one three-line email about the fight, no conversations at all.
"We've been trying to contact Eddie Hearn for one month, multiple phone calls and emails, they've just gone missing."
