Bad-boy Dillian’s doing it for mum
following teenager.
“You can think what you like about me, as long as my mother is happy with me,” Whyte said. “My mum is happy with me, even without being a world champion. She’s happy that I’ve turned my life around, I’m alive and doing something positive. her to Brixton as a My mum didn’t know half the stuff I got up to because I always kept it away from her. I was scared of my mum, but not out of fear, out of respect.
“Whatever I was doing, all the stuff I’ve been through, I didn’t go to hospital because I didn’t want my mum to find out because of fear of disappointing my mum. I was always the bad boy but when it comes to my mum, she would come and be like, ‘Come inside’, and I’d be like, ‘All right, yeah, OK mum’.”
That respect was drilled into Whyte in Jamaica and the depth of feeling was illustrated by his response to the scenes in New York last week, where Joshua’s mother was insulted by the American fighter Jarrell Miller.
Joshua was promoting his September fight against Alexander Povetkin when Miller stormed the stage to taunt the champion by saying his mum “looked good in a Sunday dress”.
Joshua squared up to Miller and told him to “shut the f*** up”, but Whyte said: “Joshua is a punk because if he had said that about my mum I would have just gone off there and then.
“Some things I just wouldn’t do and one is disrespect another person’s mum. That’s below the belt. Where I’m from in Jamaica, people get killed for that. If you said that about someone’s mum, they will kill you, 100 per cent.”
Whyte is hoping a spectacular win tonight will put him in the frame for a rematch next year with old foe Joshua – the only man he has lost to in 24 professional outings.
Joshua, meanwhile, has underlined British boxing’s growing power by snubbing the overtures of US promoters and signing a three-year contract extension with Matchroom,
Eddie Hearn’s
outfit.