WHYTE SPIRIT

DILLIAN WHYTE has no fear of being at the centre of a Moses Itauma storm —having been born during the middle of a hurricane.

Whyte – who ate out of rubbish bins and sold Fanta on the street as a youngster in Jamaica – faces the super-hot prospect on Saturday in sweltering Saudi Arabia.

He comes into it as the outsider hoping his experience will trump the speed, power and confidence of 20-year-old Itauma.

But for Whyte -who owns 22 dogs -fighting to save his career is nothing new having been a survivor from the moment he was born.

The bookies’ underdog said: “I’ve always been a fighter. I was born in the middle of a hurricane in 1988, a hurricane blew the roof of my mum’s house while she was giving birth to me.

“I just know to persist. I’m extremely stubborn. All I’ve done in my life is fight and struggle, fight and struggle, fight and struggle, fight and struggle, fight and struggle. So it’s what I know what to do. Everything else I’ve had to learn. I’ve had to learn to be a better human being. I’ve had to learn to be a person of faith, I’ve had to learn to be more loving, more caring.

“I’ve had to learn to do other things but fighting and being amongst animals is the two things that I know to do best.”

Whyte was born in Port Antonio, located on Jamaica’s northeast coast and struggled growing up – almost dying of starvation.

He was briefly separated from his mother – who moved to England to work- before he was a teenager so Whyte did what he could to get by.

The heavyweight said: “I was left with cousins and aunties and sometimes I never had no guardians and no one to take care of me.

“So I was out in the street surviving, stealing and robbing to get by. Stealing not, robbing people’s money. Just robbing food and stuff to get by, eating from trash cans, doing stuff like that, working as a kid.

“I remember selling Fanta bottles, the glass bottles, to make money selling fruits, farming. I been suffering my whole life.”

Whyte reunited with his mother -who later got a job in the NHS-when he was 12.

But he was quickly introduced into a life of crime on the streets of London, joining a gang which got him both stabbed and SHOT.

It was only when Whyte- who had his first child aged just 13 years old – found kickboxing did he truly find refuge having his first fight at 20.

Despite turning professional, he switched to boxing to chase more lucrative paydays – since earning millions and challenging for a world title. The unlikely success story said: “I never thought I was gonna be a heavyweight boxer, a heavyweight champion or be doing good.

“I got in trouble, started doing a little bit of training to stay out of trouble and then doing kickboxing and boxing fell on my lap and then saved my life.”

Whyte has delivered some of Britain’s best heavyweight nights over the last decade, including classics with Anthony Joshua, Derek Chisora and Joseph Parker. But he lost in his long-awaited WBC world title shot in 2022 after being knocked out in round six by Tyson Fury. Whyte’s career has also been clouded with controversy outside of the ring.In 2012, he was banned for two years after testing positive for methylhexaneamine (MHA) – known to increase energy.

The stimulant was contained in a pre-workout called Jack3D – which Whyte says he took without knowing it was banned.

In July 2019, Whyte then tested positive for an unknown banned substance before his victory over Oscar Rivas -with the bout allowed to go ahead. But five months later the case was dropped by United Kingdom Anti-Doping in another case of “isolated contamination”.

Whyte’s third doping case came in 2023 when his big-money rematch with Joshua- following defeat in 2015- was scrapped.

Again, the Jamaican-Brit returned an adverse finding and blamed it on contamination before he continued his career overseas.  -Sun.