Dillian Whyte and Otto Wallin were due to battle it out on Halloween weekend in a major heavyweight showdown.
The ‘Bodysnatcher’ was set to face the Swede at the 02 Arena in his home city of London on Saturday, but it has been called off due to the Brit’s shoulder injury.
Wallin’s promoter Dmitriy Salita is pushing to have the bout rebooked but Whyte has set his sights on facing WBC king Tyson Fury next.
“It’s Wallin or Fury next,” Briton Whyte told BBC Five Live’s Boxing podcast.
“Of course Wallin is going to be upset. He’s spent money he thought he was going to earn. Many times I’ve had fights fall through, you can’t be upset.
“This is an investment in your career and your future. I see why he’s upset. Some fighters don’t dodge fights, some fighters don’t pull out of fights.
“But in that time, if a potential better opportunity comes up, I’ve been waiting to fight for the world title. I’m not going to put it off to fight Otto Wallin.”
Whyte had been training in Portugal for Wallin and has also hit back at claims he faked his injury in order to pull out of Saturday’s showdown.
He said: “People know I don’t pull out of fights.
“My shoulder just completely shut down – I was in pain. Come out of the ring and said something’s not right here.
“This ain’t right for me to complain about. We went and did an MRI [scan] the next day and it showed my shoulder was way worse than I thought it was. I wanted to fight.
“I said if we managed it, got an injection before the fight, I’ll fight. I didn’t want to pull out. But no, because you get idiots like Salita and Wallin talking crap.
“Wallin was a hand-picked cherry. He wasn’t a voluntary, he was just someone I picked [to fight].”
Whyte added: “I wanted to fight. I begged them to fight. If I need surgery after, I need surgery after. I’ve done it before, nothing new to me.”
The rest of the card will continue, with the super lightweight unification battle between Chantelle Cameron and Mary McGee topping the bill.
Alen Babic is also set to face former world heavyweight title contender Eric Molina.
But Wallin’s promoter Salita hasn’t given up hope of rescheduling the main-event as he said: “If it is an injury, then he should heal, and they should reschedule.
“Anything else would be unfair to boxing, and unfair to Wallin. We’re definitely going to petition the WBC.”
The WBC announced before Fury’s win against Deontay Wilder that the winner would have 30 days to agree an undisputed clash with Oleksandr Usyk, or they would be ordered to defend against whoever has the WBC ‘interim’ belt.
In September, the Ukrainian defeated Anthony Joshua and a rematch clause has already been invoked, with March or April 2022 the target date.
This scuppered any chances of Usyk, who now holds the WBA, WBO and IBF and belts, agreeing an undisputed clash with Fury.
Therefore, Whyte would have been ordered as mandatory to Fury’s WBC belt, had he beaten Wallin.
The Brit has been waiting more than three years for his shot at the Gypsy King. He was on the brink of this last year before he was knocked out by Alexander Povetkin – a loss he avenged in March.
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