Top Rank’s CEO Bob Arum, who promotes WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury, is not ruling out the possibility of a mandatory fight with Dillian Whyte in early 2022.
This coming Saturday night, Fury will defend the belt against Deontay Wilder in a trilogy fight at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
The original plan, was to face Anthony Joshua in the first half of 2022.
That plan was derailed last month, when Oleksandr Usyk outboxed Joshua over twelve rounds to capture the WBO, IBF, IBO, WBA titles at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
Joshua will now face Usyk in a rematch in February or March.
Provided Fury wins, he will be looking for a solid opponent in the first quarter of the upcoming year.
Whyte is the number one ranked contender and holds the WBC’s interim-title.
Whyte has to overcome some upcoming business of his own, when he faces Otto Wallin on October 30.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic and several delays to the Fury-Wilder trilogy, the WBC heavyweight belt has not seen a mandatory defense since May of 2019, when Wilder blew away Dominic Breazeale in one round.
There is a good possibility of the WBC ordering the victor of the Fury-Wilder trilogy to make a mandatory defense against the Whyte-Wallin winner.
“I haven’t spoken to [WBC President] Mauricio [Sulaiman] yet, we will have to see [what they rule on Fury’s mandatory],” Arum told IFL TV.
“I assume you are talking about Dillian Whyte, who is the number one contender. And that could be a big, big fight for Tyson, particularly if we held it in UK. That is not out of the question, Dillian Whyte is a capable heavyweight and a fight against Tyson Fury or Wilder [or] whoever wins would be a very interesting fight.”