FIGHT WEEK
Tyson Fury will defend his heavyweight title against British rival Dillian Whyte before an expected 90,000-plus at Wembley Stadium and on pay-per-view.
Tyson Fury (31-0-1, 22 KOs) vs. Dillian Whyte (28-2, 19 KOs)
- When: Saturday, April 23
- Time: 2 p.m. ET / 11 a.m. PT (main event later in show)
- Where: Wembley Stadium, London
- TV/Stream: ESPN+ Pay-per-view ($69.99) and theaters in U.S.; BT Sports Box Office Pay-per-view in U.K. (£24.95)
- Division: Heavyweight (unlimited)
- Rounds: 12
- At stake: Fury’s WBC title
- Pound-for-pound ranking: Fury No. 6
- Odds: Fury 5-1 favorite (average of multiple outlets)
- Also on the card: Anthony Cacace vs. Jonathan Romero, junior lightweights; Isaac Lowe vs. Nick Ball, featherweights
- Prediction: Fury UD
- Background: Tyson Fury returns to the U.K. for his second title defense after campaigning in the U.S. over the past three-plus years. And British fans evidently have taken notice: 94,000 are expected to fill Wembley Stadium to watch him face countryman and longtime contender Dillian Whyte in arguably the biggest All-British heavyweight fight in history. The 33-year-old “Gypsy King” is coming off back-to-back knockouts of rival Deontay Wilder, a dominating seventh-round stoppage in February 2020 and a brawl in which he got up from two knockdowns to KO Wilder in 11 rounds last October. Oleksandr Usyk holds there of the four major heavyweight titles but most experts rate Fury higher than the Ukrainian. Whyte will be fighting for a major heavyweight title for a second time, having been stopped by then-beltholder Anthony Joshua in 2015. He became the WBC’s top contender in 2017 but couldn’t secure a fight with then-champion Wilder. The 34-year-old Londoner finally gets his shot after he rebounded from a one-punch knockout loss to Alexander Povetkin in 2020 by stopping the Russian in the rematch in March of last year.
Also fighting this week:
WEDNESDAY
- Michael Zerafa vs. Issac Hardman, middleweights, Melbourne, Australia (FITE)
THURSDAY
- Joel Diaz Jr. vs. Mercito Gesta, junior welterweights, Indio, California (DAZN)
- Yesenia Gomez vs. Kim Clavel, junior flyweights (for Gomez’s WBC title), Montreal (no TV in U.S.)
FRIDAY
- John Riel Casimero vs. Paul Butler, bantamweights (for Casimero’s WBO title), Liverpool, England (no TV in U.S.)
- Ivan Zucco vs. Marko Nikolic, super middleweights, Verbania, Italy (DAZN)
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