Whyte: Povetkin Has Been Consistently at This Level For 15 Years

The cloud of gloom seems to have lifted Dillian Whyte. Back in December, when he turned up in Saudi Arabia for his hastily-arranged fight with Mariusz Wach, Whyte was overweight and miserable. It showed in the ring as he plodded his way to a points win, looking anything like a future heavyweight champion. After five months away from home in Portugal, Whyte has his bounce back.

A much trimmer Whyte got on the scales on Friday in Brentwood ahead of his fight with Alexander Povetkin. The massive weight gain, which had seen him scale 271 pounds against Wach, was not just the result of a lack of training, but stress. On the week of the fight he was received notification that a UK Anti-Doping charge, relating to an abnormal test from six months before, had been dropped. 

Having been suspended for a doping offence earlier in his career, another strike could have meant the end of his title hopes.

“My career was in tatters, my life was in tatters, my status as a fighter, my credibility as a person, everything was a shambles,” Whyte said this week. “It has been good to get away and focus. It was what I needed.

“The circumstances were that I got the fight at three weeks’ notice. I wasn’t training, I wasn’t in any form or shape to fight, but for my mental health I had to fight. I was fighting for my career and my stock and value plummeted. Now I am back where I should be.

“I’m me, I never change. Sometimes I am in better shape, sometimes I am more motivated than at other times. This time I’m in a good place, I’m ready to rock, I trained hard. I’m motivated and ready to go.”

While much of the talk has been of Tyson Fury, for now, Whyte has a big task in front of him in Povetkin, who despite being 40, is possibly his toughest task since he was knocked out by Joshua in 2015 in the seventh round, the same round Joshua beat Povetkin at Wembley three years later.

“No one could ever say Povetkin was an easy fight,” Whyte said. “He has been consistently at this level for 15 years, beating top guys. He gave Anthony Joshua problems, he gave Wladimir Klitschko problems. He’s very technically sound and he carries good punch power. Yeah, he’s 40, but you have guys going on longer and getting stronger these days – Hopkins went on until he was 50.”

“He’s a very aggressive fighter. He’s strong, solid and comes forward. They think they can beat me, they think they can stop me.

“He might try to go early, let’s see what happens. I’m prepared for whatever he does, whether it’s a 12-round war or a boxing fight.”

While others might be tempted to sit back and let a title shot come to them, Whyte has continued to take fights and he remains convinced that this will benefit him in the long run.

“People forget I only had seven amateur fights and 28 professional fights,” he said. “I’m not a novice but I still not very experienced and I’ve still got a lot of learning to do. 

“This is just preparing me for the journey. When I do get to the world title, I will have seen different styles. Someone like Povetkin has probably fought 40-50 guys with a similar style to me as an amateur, let alone as a pro.

“It’s all learning, so when it does come, I have ticked the boxes and added enough bricks to the wall that it is strong enough to become a world champion.

“Part of my strength is being adaptable and adapting to my situation and my surroundings. It’s strange times, things change in the world on a daily basis, so you need to be able to adapt.”

Ron Lewis is a senior writer for Boxing Scene. He was Boxing Correspondent for The Times, where he worked from 2001-2019 – covering four Olympic Games and numerous world title fights across the globe. He has written about boxing for a wide variety of publications worldwide since the 1980s.