Derek Chisora has backed Dillian Whyte to beat Tyson Fury after questioning whether the WBC world champion still has his “hunger”.
Whyte and Fury will meet in a high-profile WBC heavyweight title fight on 23 April, with the venue yet to be confirmed.
Having lost to each fighter twice, Chisora is a qualified assessor of the pair’s relative strengths, and thinks that challenger Whyte may just have the edge as he will “want it more”.
Chisora thinks that most boxers struggle to maintain their hunger after receiving the vast financial rewards that marquee fights bring.
“He [Dillian Whyte] wants it, he’s hungry,” Chisora told Behind the Gloves. “The problem is when fighters make £20million, £30m or £40m – they’re not hungry anymore.
“There’s only one fighter who has ever been hungry when he’s made £100m and that’s Floyd Mayweather.
“When the rest of the fighters make all this money, they’re not hungry anymore, they just do it for the sake of doing it. But when someone who is hungry [and] wants it more, like Dillian right now, he’s going to come in and die in that ring that day.”
Fury had been hoping to take on Oleksandr Usyk in a unification bout, but a proposed deal that would have seen Anthony Joshua step aside from his rematch with the Ukrainian fell through.
There had then been a considerable delay for Whyte to agree to terms on a fight with Fury due to a dispute over the split of the purse.
“Dillian Whyte signed his contract for $8m, what a surprise,” Fury said on social media on Tuesday. “The man’s signed for the biggest payday he’s going to get in his life.”
The undefeated 33-year-old then confirmed that he would be taking a break from social media to focus on his preparations for the Whyte fight night.
“I’m about to go off social media completely for the next eight and a half weeks,” he said. “I’m going into training camp to give Dillian Whyte all the respect in the world he needs. I’ll never underestimate anyone in my life.
“Don’t phone me, call me, email me, text me or try to contact me in any way as I am out of bounds until May. I’ll be training away. Please respect my privacy and space. See you all at the press conference.”
