Minted Whyte now eyes date with Deontay

IT was gone 1am when Alexander Povetkin finally hobbled from his dressing room, supported under each armpit by a member of his team. A reminder, then, that whatever else is said about Dillian Whyte, he can pose stiff threats to one’s health. A question remains over what condition Povetkin was in even before his four-round beating, and it seems reasonably indisputable that the 41-year-old’s recovery from a bout of Covid had not been as complete as he suggested. He never looked quite right during fight week, and that was brutally exposed by a British heavyweight with a point to prove. Nothing should be taken away from Whyte, who has resumed his place at the front of the line waiting for Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua. But, equally, it will take more than an excellent knockout of a weakened old champion to conclude that he is capable of beating either of those British giants. Plans to gather further evidence of his title credibility are already being formulated. The view of his promoter Eddie Hearn is that they will take the Whyte show from Gibraltar to the US, probably for a lowerkey engagement in July, and then attempt to make a fight with Deontay Wilder at the back end of the year. Whyte (below) is making noises about his legal right to trigger a fight with WBC champion Fury, having already waited more than 1,000 days as the WBC’s mandatory challenger ahead of his shock defeat by Povetkin in July. But if FuryJoshua does happen this year, it will be 2022 at the earliest that Whyte gets that crack. On Wilder, Whyte said: ‘We don’t know if Wilder is even going to fight again. All he does is post pictures with guns, alcohol and weed. Or he’s shaking his ass on TV. ‘I would love to smash his face in — but if he’s not going to fight, what can I do?’ It’s been a good trip for Whyte, who has brooded in that usual way of his, with the aura of a man who feels he has received less credit from the world than he is due. But here he controlled Povetkin with good boxing and moments of more familiar venom. He had the Russian wobbled twice, in the first and second rounds, and finished him in the fourth with a brilliant left hook to the jaw. It was a fine way to end a week in which the 32-year-old was minted on a Gibraltar coin. ‘I’m the first black man to go on a legal British coin,’ he said. ‘Who would have thought a kid from Jamaica who was left to die, survived, grew up in gangs, been shot, been in prison, to turn out with that distinction? I’m grateful, man.’ There was a debut win over Jesus Ruiz for Campbell Hatton, son of former world champion Ricky, on the undercard. His head movement wasn’t great and he was wild in his attacks, all of which can be expected of a 20-year-old novice. He became the 11th man out of 11 to beat Ruiz, and the tenth to fail to stop him, and next he will fight on Derek Chisora’s undercard on May 1. ‘In my head that was me on a five out of ten,’ he said.