Heavyweight Dillian Whyte has been added to the Andy Ruiz Jr-Anthony Joshua card in Saudi Arabia on Saturday Dec 7.
Whyte will take on former world title challenger Mariusz Wach in his first fight back since he outpointed Oscar Rivas in London in July, taking his record to 26-1 with 18 knockouts.
It was revealed later that Whyte had been cleared to fight Rivas after attending an interview with an independent panel set up by UK Anti-Doping after an adverse finding in a random drug test on the morning of the Rivas contest. There has been no comment since then from UKAD and Robert Smith, Secretary of the British Boxing Board told Telegraph Sport that there was no issue in Whyte fighting in Saudi Arabia and that the boxer “is not suspended”.
The World Boxing Council, however, removed Whyte as its mandatory challenger in July.
Whyte expressed his joy on social media yesterday after the announcement, with the Polish fighter Wach (35-5, 19 KOs) having been due to face the Brixton man back in 2017 before Whyte withdrew with an injured foot.
Elsewhere, Tony Sims, head trainer of John Ryder, confirmed that a formal appeal had been made to the World Boxing Association on Sunday after they were deeply unhappy with the scoring of the judges in the supermiddleweight world title fight with Callum Smith in Liverpool. Smith won the bout 117-111, 116-112 and 116-112 but Sims demanded that the WBA order an immediate rematch after studying the fight again and insisted that Ryder should keep his mandatory challenger status.