The countdown to Tyson Fury vs Dillian Whyte on April 23rd is well and truly on, with excitement set to rise further with today's press conference. However, only one of the fighters will be in attendance for the event in London.
Fans have had to wait a long while for the fight to be given the green light, with purse bids delay on no fewer than four occasions and Whyte waiting until the last moment to pen his contract. In the end though, everything came together and the fight will go ahead.
However, that's not the end of the drama as Whyte won't be in attendance for the first press conference ahead of the fight - meaning that Fury will face the media on his own, where he'll likely fire numerous jibes in the direction of his opponent.
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The reason for Whyte 's absence from the event has been confirmed by Fury's co-promoter Bob Arum, who has stated that it's due to the fact he will not be paid an upside - although it's been made clear that that would never usually be provided following a purse bid," he told BoxingScene.
“He will not come to the press conference. We won the purse bid, which was way higher than the next biggest bid. And he’s not coming to the press conference because we wouldn’t give him a percentage of the upside [from pay-per-view sales], which you don’t get in a purse bid.
"He told us he won’t come to any of the press conferences except the last one.”
Furthermore, The Sun says Whyte claims he did not receive a proper invite to attend the event and will therefore not break from his training camp in Portugal. His lawyer, Jeffrey Bunz, has provided his side of the situation.
“Dillian Whyte would have been more than happy to attend the ticket launch event but was not able to reach agreement with Frank Warren’s Queensberry Promotions on even his very basic requirements which are normal in the sport of boxing.
“But they didn’t even given us notice of where and when this one-sided shindig will occur. It really is incredible. We are dealing with dinosaurs here. They bid $41m for a fight but are all over the place. They haven’t even met Dillian’s basic requirements which are entirely usual and nothing out of the ordinary.”
"Dillian has been given no guarantee or escrow that he will actually get paid for fighting. Queensberry haven’t offered him a complimentary ticket allocation as is standard – not even a single ticket for his mother – or any opportunity to buy any for his family, friends or extended team.
"They won’t advise on whether and to what extent Fury is subject to anti-doping testing by UKAD or other bodies in the same way that Dillian is regularly tested by both UKAD and VADA. They have so far failed to commence enhanced VADA testing as Dillian requested in the signed contract over a week ago.
"They used artwork with a photo of Dillian and didn’t seek his consent or even feature him accurately with his WBC world championship belt. And, bizarrely, they won’t even tell him the size of the ring that he will be competing in.”
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