Dillian Whyte Finally Signed Tyson Fury Contract Monday

To no one’s surprise English Heavyweight contender Dillian Whyte waited until the final hours of the WBC’s deadline to sign the contract to fight champion Tyson Fury coming this Spring. And, after posturing for weeks to get more money, he finally agreed on Monday to set the title bout into motion.

Boxingscene’s Keith Idec reported Monday evening that Whyte did in fact follow through with formally agreeing to meet Fury in what will be the highest payday of his career,

Dillian Whyte has signed his contract. His mandated WBC heavyweight title fight against Tyson Fury is on for April 23 at Wembley Stadium in London. #FuryWhite

— Keith Idec (@Idecboxing) February 22, 2022

All of this culminates the weeks of back and forth after Frank Warren won the right to promote Fury-Whyte with a record $41 million blind purse bid back at the end of January.

As we wrote, the purse bid win by Queensberry is a blow financially and to the ego of Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing (Whyte’s promoter), which bid $32 million to try to secure the bout. Hearn has been positioning a potential number one contender title fight with Whyte for over a year.

Further, Warren will likely announce shortly that they will stage the fight at an outdoor venue like famed Wembley Stadium that can seat in excess of 85,000 for boxing. This will be a homecoming for the “Gypsy King” and his first title defense in the U.K. ever.

The WBC has maintained that the purse split will be 80% / 20%, which means Fury stands to make over $30 guaranteed. And, that will also be the highest pay day of Whyte’s career as he is set to make somewhere around $8 or $9 million guaranteed.

Whyte is suing the WBC on a couple of fronts, including that purse bid split, which he believes should be at least 40% for him. So, far no luck for him.

Fury was last in the ring in October when he beat former champion Deontay Wilder decisively for the second straight time. This time by 11th round TKO stoppage. He’s also the former Undisputed Heavyweight titleholder after having defeated at Wladimir Klitschko by decision in 2015. However, after that upset win, Fury very famously disappeared from the boxing landscape for over two years suffering from depression and drug and alcohol abuse problems. Then, he vacated all of his titles.

Whyte, who previously lost to Anthony Joshua in 2015 non-title battle by KO was last in the ring in March of 2021. That’s when he avenged a KO loss to Russian Alexander Povetkin by beating Povetkin in just two rounds in their rematch.

We will now look for the formal Warren/Queensberry announcement that the Fury-Whyte battle will likely be for April 23rd and likely at Wembley.