Dillian Whyte has insisted he is willing to fight Anthony Joshua and has accused Eddie Hearn of making him a ‘scapegoat’.
Whyte was last in the ring against Jermaine Franklin in November, who then fought ‘AJ’ five months later. It has been reported that Joshua is targeting a domestic fight in August ahead of a proposed bout with Deontay Wilder in December.
Promoter Eddie Hearn stated that an offer was made to Whyte for a rematch with Joshua but the Matchroom boss had suggested that a disagreement over finances had made the fight an unlikely proposition. However, Whyte has questioned Hearn’s claims and has claimed he is still waiting for talks to take place.
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"We've had one three-line email about the fight, no conversations at all,” Whyte told talkSPORT. “We've been trying to contact Eddie Hearn for one month, multiple phone calls and emails, they've just gone missing.
"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 a serious fight, but they're trying to keep his name good and make it look like he's trying to have big fights.”
"It was just one offer that came in, I'm in training camp now, training to fight AJ,” Whyte continued. “But I've never felt the fight was real, I've been negotiating with Eddie Hearn for years, I know when Eddie wants a fight, he calls you, he bugs you. I haven't spoken to Eddie Hearn for one month.”
The last meeting between the pair saw ‘AJ’ record a TKO win in 2015, with Whyte having won an amateur bout against Joshua, back in 2009. Whyte has said he is willing to fight the former heavyweight champion for a third fight with the former world but believes his name has been used as a ploy by Joshua’s promoter.
"100 per cent, of course I would, I wanna fight AJ and beat him,” Whyte said. "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.”
