Breaking Down the Purse War Likely to Start Between Tyson Fury and Dillian Whyte

The ink on the WBC’s contract stating that Dillian Whyte will be the mandatory challenger for Tyson Fury’s heavyweight belts isn’t even dry yet and Eddie Hearn is already claiming that a deal between the pair is unlikely. Indeed, the chairman of Matchroom Sport, who is Whyte’s promoter, has already said that Fury’s purse demands are likely to be too high for Whyte to agree to fight him.

As things stand, Hearn is right as Fury does hold all the power after beating Deontay Wilder and anyone betting on boxing will see that the 33-year-old is heavily favored to beat Whyte having been priced at just 1/7 to do so.

In other words, the boxing predictions tonight make no bones about the fact that Fury is very likely to dispose of Whyte with some ease which is the reason why the current WBC champion holds all the cards. Indeed, Fury is the man to beat and any challenger will in all likelihood have to buckle to the majority of his conditions.

In reality, it’s an age-old practice in boxing and one that any title hopeful has to agree to in order to get their shot at the king, conversely, if they win then the scales tip dramatically as they are now in the favorable position from which to negotiate a far more lucrative purse.

The long and short of it is that any mandatory challenger will normally settle on a 55-45% share of the pot but Hearn is sensationally predicting that Fury will want as much as 80% of the purse, leaving Whyte with a miserly 20%. To start with, it makes no sense for Whyte to put his body on the line against Fury for as little as that given that 33-year-old is a lot closer to the end of his career than the beginning. After all, why would he risk a healthy retirement for a mere pittance by going head to head with arguably the greatest heavyweight of this era?

It all centers on the risk and reward element of heavyweight boxing and anyone getting into the ring needs to be well compensated for the beating that their motor control, visceral control, and sensory control are about to receive. At this stage, you may wonder why anyone does it given how badly a boxer’s brain gets scrambled after taking a few punches but the answer has to be that everyone has a price. In this instance, so does Dillian Whye and it is not 20% of anything.

With this in mind, Whyte and his advisors will be doing the right thing by not being bullied by Fury’s camp into accepting a meager take-home. Naturally, this is all based on what Hearn thinks is coming their way in the form of an offer but having negotiated with Fury recently in a bid to get Anthony Joshua a fight with him, Hearn is perhaps best placed to shed light on how the WBC champion’s camp operates.

The burning question then: will we get a fight between Whyte and Fury? Strangely, the answer is yes.

Indeed, Fury is likely to accept less of the lion’s share of any particular purse with Whyte as he wants to fight both Oleksandr Usyk and Anthony Joshua by the end of 2022, and he can’t do that without fighting Whyte first. In addition to that, having made well over $100 million in his career so far, Fury may be tempted to accept around 60% in a bid to get Whyte out the way so that he can have a crack at both Usyk and Joshua, which he then says, will be the time he retires. So yes, Dillian Whyte could be a means to an end for Tyson Fury which is why it’s likely we’ll see them square up in early 2022.