Have we got Ben Whittaker all wrong? British boxing fandom has long had a confused relationship with showmen, at times adoring the likes of “Prince” Naseem Hamed and Tyson Fury, and at others demanding greater humility from those who boast and gloat. So, in 2025, where does Whittaker fit in?

The “Surgeon” has sliced his way into a peculiar spot over the last 12 months. It was almost exactly a year ago that the Olympic silver medalist, now unbeaten as a professional, tumbled out of the ring in a fight in which he was struggling. With defeat appearing a distinct possibility, Whittaker disappeared over the top rope, was too injured to continue, and his truncated fight with Liam Cameron was ruled a draw.

This is not to suggest that Whittaker, 28, engineered an eccentric exit to preserve his unbeaten record; that allegation was thrown around by some, yes, but not in these pages. Regardless, the pressure on Whittaker – who had gone viral earlier in 2024 for his flamboyant dissection of Khalid Graidia – was so immense ahead of his February rematch with Cameron, that the burgeoning star took a social-media hiatus at a crucial career juncture.

It paid off, as did his switch of coaches, as Whittaker teamed up with Tyson Fury’s co-trainer Andy Lee. Headlining a hometown show in Birmingham, Whittaker stopped Cameron in the first round.

“It was of course excitement, relief, all them things,” Whittaker tells The Independent now, “but it was more annoyance – if that’s a word? I don’t know if I went to school, but annoyance, if that’s a word! I was just annoyed, because I thought: ‘This is what should have happened in the first fight.’

“So yeah, it was like, ‘Yeah, this is good, we’ve silenced people,’ but really and truly, me, Andy, my dad, my brother and everyone else, we knew that should have happened [in the first fight]. So, we just said: ‘Thank God that’s over, now we can just move on with our career.’”

Moving on has also meant moving from Boxxer to Matchroom, led by the charismatic Eddie Hearn. While Whittaker needs no one to do his talking for him, his partnership with the promoter has been deemed a “perfect match”. It was launched earlier in October with a spoof of a famous Jerry Maguire scene, with Hearn playing the part of Tom Cruise’s titular character.

Eddie Hearn during a spoof of the film ‘Jerry Maguire’, to unveil the signing of Ben Whittaker (@MatchroomBoxing / X)
Whittaker playing his part in the ‘Jerry Maguire’ spoof

Whittaker playing his part in the ‘Jerry Maguire’ spoof (@MatchroomBoxing / X)

“We knew it was gonna happen,” says Whittaker, who revealed last week that he was close to joining Matchroom earlier in his career. While Matchroom has aired its shows on DAZN for some time, Boxxer offered Whittaker the Sky Sports platform; but the promotion’s contracts with Sky and Whittaker are now up (Boxxer shows will air on the BBC from November).

“Luckily enough, with Boxxer, I’ve had some experience as a pro now,” Whittaker continues. “I’ve got a decent platform, so the platform wasn’t an issue really. It was just: ‘Who can root me in the best way in my career to get me the right fights, the right titles, the right rankings?’ And [Hearn] has done it before with previous fighters, so for me, if you’ve done it before, you can do it again.

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“And I’m in a position where you’re not getting any younger now; you need to have the right fights, the right momentum and activity, and I could do all those things [I want to do].”

Hearn, for his part, tells media including The Independent: “We actually agreed terms with Ben Whittaker about three years ago. We filmed a promo, he was throwing money in the air in the promo shoot, and I was looking at him, thinking: ‘We’ve got one here.’

“This [new] offer came in, and we said: ‘We’ve got to take it.’ I think his profile is arguably the biggest in British boxing right now, even up there with AJ [Anthony Joshua] and Fury in terms of followings and stuff like that. If you get it right, this guy’s gonna fill stadiums all around the world.

Whittaker is restrained by coach Andy Lee after stopping Liam Cameron in their rematch

Whittaker is restrained by coach Andy Lee after stopping Liam Cameron in their rematch (Action Images via Reuters)

“But his development is really important, and for me as a fight fan, I look at the quality of the fighter, and I think this is a guy that can go on and mix it with all of the best and become world light-heavyweight champion.”

Whittaker will face the German unknown Benjamin Gavazi in Birmingham on 29 November, while Hearn hints at a trip to the US in early 2026, before a summer return to the UK for a “much-bigger fight”. Hearn also hints at certain levels of fighter between Gavazi and divisional deities Dmitry Bivol and Artur Beterbiev, naming Willy Hutchinson as a potential next step, before possible further domestic clashes with the likes of Callum Smith and Joshua Buatsi.

For his part, Whittaker is surprisingly restrained on stage today, but he does deliver a signature quip at the end, saying of Gavazi: “I’m gonna slice him and dice him, and turn him into a German Doner kebab.”

Yet there is another side to the Surgeon. “Ben is a pleasure to train,” Lee says on stage. “Even though he’s a showman and he has that bravado, he’s also very humble, even though people may not believe it!”

Indeed, people may not believe it. But as Whittaker begins the next phase of his career, he has the chance to win the public over again, in a different way, and perhaps on an even-bigger scale.

Read the full article here

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