Commentator Spencer Oliver says light heavyweight contender Ben Whittaker must show X-rays to prove that he was injured during his fall outside of the ring in the fifth round of his fight against Liam Cameron last Saturday night at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh.
Oliver feels that Whittaker got exposed, and many fans believe he flat-out quit to avoid getting knocked out by the 33-year-old Cameron.
Whittaker (8-0-1, 5 KOs) couldn’t continue the fight, which was going badly for him when he tumbled out of the ring. He had to be taken out of the arena in a wheelchair. He reportedly suffered an ankle sprain in the fall.
The fight had been going badly for the 2020 Olympic silver medalist Whittaker since the third when he started getting hit a lot by the heavy-handed Cameron (23-6-1, 10 KOs), who wasn’t expected to be to be competitive.
In the fifth round, Whittaker appeared to hold onto Cameron and lean on him when the two were against the ropes, which sent both fighters tumbling outside of the ring. Whitaker stayed down and couldn’t continue fighting. The match went to the scorecards with the judges scoring it:
– 58-57 – Cameron
– 58-57 – Whittaker
– 58-58
“I said, ‘We need to see the X-rays,’” said Spencer Oliver to talkSport Boxing about wanting to see the X-rays of Ben Whittaker’s injured ankle. “On the surface of it, he could have swallowed. He was exposed in many ways on that night. It started going horribly wrong for him, and you thought, ‘Where is that technical ability to turn it back around?’
“Ben Whittaker needs to show the evidence, the X-rays, to show that he actually has [an injury]. If he doesn’t do that, it’s going to be a big jury out. We were talking about him being a superstar. He had everything it took outside of the ring, inside the ring.”
Whittaker should have already shown an X-ray or produced a doctor’s note to confirm his ankle injury so that fans wouldn’t have doubts.
“Cameron was winning the fight. I think Ben got away really lightly with the score. Was he exposed, and did he swallow it? He sort of unraveled really quickly. He got dragged into a dog fight. In the fifth round, when they were against the ropes, it was like a WWE. He pulled him out of the ring,” said Oliver.
Obviously, there’s going to have to be a rematch because Whittaker can’t walk away from this fight without showing that he can beat this guy.
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