Dillian Whyte was a majority-decision winner against Jermaine Franklin in a heavyweight main event at London’s Wembley Arena on Saturday tonight.
In April, just a matter of metres away from this evening’s venue, Whyte suffered a heartbreaking knockout loss to Tyson Fury at Wembley Stadium, failing to dethrone the WBC champion in front of 94,000 fans. Here, Whyte, 34, looked to bounce back, as the Briton took on unbeaten American Franklin.
By the end of the evening, Franklin was no longer undefeated, but a weary Whyte had also failed to bounce back with the spring that he would have hoped for. Whyte was declared a 116-112 winner on two of the judges’ scorecards, while the other read 115-115. The Briton found early success with vicious hooks to the body of Franklin, but the 29-year-old did well to fire back each time Whyte seemed to be building momentum.
It made for a dramatic conclusion to the fight, with the winner apparently up in the air. Whyte landed a huge left hook to send Franklin tumbling onto the ropes in the final seconds of the last round, but still Franklin retaliated with focused shots. Ultimately, however, the American suffered a first professional defeat as Whyte’s hand was raised, setting up a potential rematch with Anthony Joshua, who was sat ringside.
Relive Whyte vs Franklin fight updates with our blog below.
