Eddie Hearn is hoping to entice a well-known Mexican-American heavyweight to get in the ring with Dillian Whyte later this fall.

The Matchroom head expressed recently that trial horse Chris Arreola and former titleholder Andy Ruiz were at the top of his list to mix it up with his oft-disgruntled client. Whyte (28-2, 19 KOs) has repeatedly caviled at the powers that be about not getting a chance to fight for a heavyweight world title. In lieu of that, he is now hoping to fight fighters with pedigree and brand value.

“There’s a number of [big] fights,” Hearn told IFL TV after the conclusion of the Kid Galahad-Jazz Dickens IBF featherweight title bout in Brentwood, England. “We quite like the Arreola fight. We spoke to [manager] Luis DeCubas Jr. and a few people. [Contender] Jermaine Franklin has been mentioned before. I think Dillian wants a real fight. That’s a fun fight. We were talking earlier about the Andy Ruiz fight. That’s such a great fight.”

Both Arreola (38-7-1, 33 KOs) and Ruiz (34-2, 22 KOs) are managed by Al Haymon, the creator of Premier Boxing Champions. Franklin (20-0, 13 KOs) is promoted by Michigan-based, Brooklyn native Dmitry Salita.  

Hearn hopes to get Whyte into the ring by October.

“I think we kind of established that he’s going to fight once this year,” Hearn said. “Rather than try and fight once in September, let’s just get the right fight, a bigger fight, in and around October.”

Whyte is coming off a fifth-round stoppage over Alexander Povetkin in their rematch last March; Whyte was stopped by the Russian, who is now retired, in the first bout last August.  

In a separate interview with IFL on the same day, Whyte also expressed interest in facing former American heavyweight titleholder Charles Martin (28-2-1, 25 KOs), who is also a Haymon client.

“Jermaine Franklin, Chris Arreola, Andy Ruiz, Charles Martin, these are the kind of guys that I want to fight,” said Whyte. “I want to fight the best guys, but sometimes it’s difficult to get the fights when the guys don’t want to fight.”

Both Hearn and Whyte said that they had reached out to Ruiz with an offer in the $5 to $6 million range. Hearn added that Whyte’s next fight would most likely take place in the UK.

“We’ve been talking about America for a while now, but if we go once this year it’s likely it’ll be in the UK,” said Hearn.