Dillian Whyte is expected to snub this afternoon’s official fight press conference for his heavyweight world title challenge against Tyson Fury. The British rivals, who have had several foul-mouthed exchanges over the years on social media, will finally get the chance to settle the score on April 23 at Wembley, where a sell-out crowd is anticipated.
Whyte has now spent over 1500 days as the WBC’s No 1 heavyweight contender but a shot at the famous green strap has continued to elude him.
Yet following the conclusion of Fury’s scintillating, epic trilogy bout with Deontay Wilder in Las Vegas, the WBC finally ordered the Gypsy King to defend his belt against Whyte.
The deal has been a work in progress for several weeks until last Tuesday when the Body Snatcher finally signed on the dotted line with just hours to spare.
He has, however, maintained silence in a bid to rile his opposite number, who has continued to taunt him on Instagram and Twitter.
Whyte currently lives in Portugal and is seemingly unwilling to participate in the promotion of the fight, besides the final press conference.
“He will not come to the press conference,” Bob Arum has told BoxingScene.com. “We won the purse bid, which was way higher than the next biggest bid. And he’s not coming to the press conference because we wouldn’t give him a percentage of the upside [from pay-per-view sales], which you don’t get in a purse bid. He told us he won’t come to any of the press conferences except the last one.”
Matchroom Boxing missed out on the chance to stage the bout after losing the pursue bid to Queensbury Promotions and Top Rank.
Fury, as champion, will take home 80 per cent (£22.5million) of his promoter Frank Warren’s winning offer of £30.6m – the biggest purse in boxing history.
A record payday of £5.6m still awaits Whyte, who has argued he is entitled to up to 45 per cent of the fight purse.
So far, his efforts to secure a bigger pay packet have fallen on deaf ears, part of the reason Whyte has failed to co-operate.
The WBC would be liable to pay the difference should Whyte win an arbitration.
How to watch
The press conference is due to get underway around 2pm from Wembley.
You can watch it live on Youtube via this link.
There will be extensive coverage published online and stories to follow on Express Sport.
The press conference is set to get underway from 2pm this afternoon and will be streamed live on YouTube here.