Ben Whittaker got the eliminator win he needed on Saturday night, but not before a final-round fright that briefly looked like it might undo nine rounds of near-total control. The unbeaten Birmingham light heavyweight edged past Conor Wallace by unanimous decision at the Utilita Arena, securing the IBF’s mandatory position against Dmitry Bivol in the process, even if promoter Eddie Hearn is already talking about delaying that fight rather than rushing into it.
A dominant fight that nearly got away from him
The scorecards, 117-111, 116-112 and 115-113, tell the story of a fight that was never genuinely close on paper but felt that way by the final bell. Whittaker controlled the first nine rounds comfortably, boxing behind his jab and showing the range and timing that have made him one of British boxing’s most eye-catching prospects. Wallace, a durable Australian-based pressure fighter, kept coming forward regardless, and in the tenth round he finally landed the kind of shot he had been hunting all night, hurting Whittaker and exposing the habit of carrying his hands low that had gone unpunished for most of the fight. The twelfth round turned into a genuine survival exercise: Wallace hurt Whittaker again, forced him into the ropes and the clinch, and sent him stumbling to the canvas three times, though none of the slips were ruled knockdowns by the referee.
Wallace’s record undersold him
Wallace’s own ledger, 17 wins and a single loss with 12 by knockout, had been treated by much of fight week as the supporting act to Whittaker’s star turn, but he arrived ranked second in the IBF’s own standings and left having given the division’s brightest prospect his hardest night as a professional. Built on Australia’s domestic circuit rather than world-level opposition, he proved exactly the kind of pressure fighter who has given Whittaker trouble before, going back to his technical draw with Liam Cameron. Both men had made the 175lb limit comfortably on Friday, and Wallace’s performance will have done his own stock no harm the next time a genuine contender is needed at short notice.
Whittaker: “I took my eye off the ball”
Whittaker was characteristically honest about what had gone wrong once the scorecards were read out. “If I’m honest, it was too easy. I took my eye off the ball a little bit, and he caught me with a good shot,” he said, before turning his attention to the man who had just given him the fright of his career. “I want to thank Wallace, great fight. I think we should do it again, and I’ll beat him down even better.” A rematch is now one option on the table, though it is far from the only one being discussed.
Hearn puts the brakes on a Bivol fight
Technically, Saturday’s win makes Whittaker the mandatory challenger for Bivol’s IBF title, part of the undisputed light heavyweight champion’s collection alongside the Ring, WBO and WBA belts. In practice, Hearn made clear immediately afterwards that he has no intention of pushing for that fight next. “If he would have looked sensational tonight and destroyed Conor Wallace, I think we would have been in a position to say, let’s go into Bivol or Callum Smith. For me, no, he needs another fight,” Hearn said, pointing to Whittaker’s conditioning and his habit of playing to the crowd under trainer Andy Lee’s instruction as the issues that need fixing first. Joshua Buatsi, Willy Hutchinson, Anthony Yarde and a Wallace rematch were all floated as possible next opponents, with a Birmingham return pencilled in for February or March.
Whittaker leaves Saturday night unbeaten at 13 wins, one draw and 9 knockouts, with a genuine world title shot now sitting in his own hands rather than Matchroom’s. Whether he takes it straight away or accepts Hearn’s case for one more tune-up, the next few weeks of matchmaking will decide how soon British boxing gets to find out if he is ready for Bivol at all.
