Instead of fighting a rematch with Dereck Chisora to clear up the controversy surrounding their fight last December, heavyweight contender Dillian Whyte (20-1, 15 KOs) will be going back to his soft opposition in facing 38-year-old journeyman Malcolm Tann (24-5, 13 KOs) on August 19 on the undercard of the Terence Crawford vs. Julius Indongo card at the Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Despite fighting a journeyman fighter with just 2 fights under his belt in the last 10 years of his pro career, Whyte thinks it’s a good opponent for him. Tann was knocked out in his last fight by Sergey Kuzmin on June 23. This begs the question, why isn’t Whyte fighting Kuzmin instead of the guy that he just knocked out? I’m just saying. I’m trying to understand the match-making that’s being done for Whyte.
“This is good experience for me, fighting some tall guys because all the champions are quite tall,” said Whyte to skysports ”It’s good for me to fight someone that kind of height in preparation for the future. He’s a tall guy, 6ft 6in, and is quite knowledgeable, knows his way around the ring.”
Tann knows his way around the ring, eh? I don’t know if Whyte has been keeping score, but the last time I checked, Tann has lost 3 out of his last 4 fights. All 3 of those defeats were by knockout. Yeah, Tann knows his way around the ring all right, and he’s doing a great job of finding the canvas. I’m having a hard time taking Whyte seriously in what he says.
It’s almost like he’s saying the opposite of reality. How do you build up an opponent with 3 defeats in his last 4 fights? How do you do that? If it was me that Hearn wanted to put Tann in with, I’d tell him to go back to the drawing board. I’d insist on a rematch with Chisora, because I wouldn’t want the stink of my controversial win over him to keep following me around like it is with Whyte.
Chisora beat the brakes off of Whyte last December, as far as I’m concerned. Boxing News 24 had Chisora winning that fight, not Whyte. There’s unfinished business there for Whyte. Hearn should at least match Whyte up against a bottom feeder in the heavyweight division, shouldn’t he? When I say bottom feeder, I’m talking about a bottom ranked top 15 contender.
