Whyte tears into Wilder vs Ruiz Jr – ‘No one cares about that fight’
In pictures: Tyson Fury v Dillian Whyte
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Dillian Whyte has claimed that ‘no one cares’ about the upcoming Deontay Wilder vs Andy Ruiz Jr fight. The pair have been called to face each other next in a WBC final eliminator bout for a shot at Tyson Fury’s green belt.
Despite the obvious impact it will have on the heavyweight division, Whyte believes neither man has the name value to pull in the numbers without a big British star alongside them. And there may be some truth to what he is saying.
Wilder’s most recent fight against Robert Helenius only garnered 77,000 US pay-per-view buys while his rematch with Luis Ortiz in 2019 received 225,000. Wilder vs Fury II, on the other hand, generated 1.2million purchases – his best to date.
Equally, Ruiz Jr and Ortiz’s WBC semi-final eliminator returned a mere 65,000 buys compared to the 562,000 and 1.6million for the first and second Anthony Joshua fights.
“No one really cares about that fight, it’s one of those fights where it is a good boxing fight, but the sad fact of the matter is that no one cares,” Whyte told DAZN.
“If Wilder is not fighting one of the big British stars it doesn’t matter because he’s not a draw. Ruiz is the same. No one cares unless they are fighting me, Fury or Joshua. Do you want to see Wilder vs Ruiz? Are you going to stay up until five in the morning to watch that? No one cares.”
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Wilder had been hoping to face unified heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk after the Ukrainian expressed interest in a fight against him. Usyk was supposed to be ringside for the Helenius fight. However, he has since set his sights on Fury for the long run.
“It’s exciting news. It’s no secret that I wanted the Usyk or the Anthony Joshua fight for Deontay, it’s big-time boxing, but if Andy Ruiz is who we have to line up and get rid of then so be it,” Wilder’s coach Malik Scott told ESNEWS.
“Andy has fast hands, he’s explosive. Usually, when you describe a fighter and say he’s short or he’s shorter, that can come across as a disadvantage.
“But in Andy’s case, being short he [knows] how to use his height to get under. I’ve already begun drawing it up and we’re going to get in the lab, and we gonna put him on his ass.”
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