Tyson Fury vs Dillian Whyte: The big boys are back, so it’s a good time to cover your ears

Which would drop first? Sue Gray’s report or Dillian Whyte’s contract to fight Tyson Fury?

As of yesterday afternoon, it was too close to call. We anticipated both, yet it wasn’t until late on Friday that we got confirmation that Whyte would finally get his chance to lock horns with Fury.

It’s a funny old business, isn’t it? Always has been, since the dawn of time. You have to take into account a long history of shadowy figures, double dealings and huge egos.

And boxing, to be fair, has also had its problems.

Fury has launched a verbal volley, scatter-gunning everyone in sight and officially launching the 2022 heavyweight season.

As always, the ‘truth’ is being written in many different ways. Let’s start with Anthony Joshua, who was rumoured to have been offered £15million to bow out of his rematch with Oleksandr Usyk.

This would have paved the way for an immediate clash between the Ukrainian and the Gypsy King to become the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.

According to Tyson, the suitcase of dosh was considerably bigger.

‘Eddie Hearn and Anthony Joshua have got to be the worstest damn businessmen in history. Today they lost 90 million dollars. God damn son of a *****es,’ he fumed. That’s step-aside money plus some form of guarantee that a fight against Fury would follow.

Eddie Hearn agrees to differ, telling iFL TV: ‘Fury doesn’t want to fight Usyk… because he had the opportunity to do it through these discussions and really, when it came down to it, he really don’t want to.’

Both of them muddying the waters and, at the same time, rendering the grammar police apoplectic.

For AJ, getting paid for being given more time to prepare indeed seems a missed opportunity, given he is still finalising a new coaching team.

Maybe