Ben Whittaker can decide his future when he fights Liam Cameron in their headline rematch on Sunday night, live on Sky Sports.
When they first met in October of last year Whittaker, the Olympic silver medallist and fast rising professional star, never intended to find himself inverted as he and Cameron both tumbled over the top rope.
The fall was ugly and the landing hard.
Whittaker had previously generated so much positive press with his dazzling professional performances, liberally sprinkled with cavalier showboating. But with that fall, he crashed through into wholly new territory. The questions being asked of him would wound any boxer’s pride. Should he have continued? Was he fortunate to finish with a draw?
Ben Whittaker says he learnt from the first fight he even looks good on the ring canvas and insisted Liam Cameron wasted his best opportunity to beat him.
Sunday’s rematch at the bp pulse LIVE arena in Birmingham is an opportunity for Whittaker to settle those sudden doubts.
“I think we’re starting from a blank canvas. It’s starting from afresh. When round one goes, it’s a whole new fight, a whole different fight. That’s what I’m excited to show,” he told Sky Sports.
“A lot of people can talk this and that but we’ll silence them when we get the win.
“Like he said, he hit the lottery, he’s got the second opportunity. We look at it as: you should have taken your moment then, because that moment won’t come again.”
But Whittaker, in front of his home supporters, will be under intense scrutiny.
Ben Whittaker and Liam Cameron went head-to-head after their public workout and shared a frosty face-off ahead of the fight on Easter Sunday.
“Them changing rooms are going to be horrible for him,” Cameron told Sky Sports. “It’s not nice as it is, never mind all this pressure on him.
“He’s got to beat me, he’s got to beat me.”
Whittaker was meant to blaze through British level on a fast track to world class. But defeat to Cameron under these circumstances will divert that career onto a wholly different trajectory.
Even Andy Lee, Whittaker’s new trainer, had to admit: “A loss is disastrous.
“A loss would be tough to overcome, mentally as much as physically,” he continued. “He didn’t have to take this rematch. It shows the character that he wanted this rematch.
“Cameron has to be respected and if you don’t respect him or don’t appreciate the way he fights or consider him a threat, a fight will go that way against him. He’s formidable. He’s strong, he’s aggressive and he’s tough and if you’re not prepared for that, you’re going to come unstuck.”
Whittaker himself is refusing to contemplate defeat.
“My mindset is not ‘my career’s on the line,'” he said. “I’m not sitting at home going: ‘I need to win this’. I know if the right me turns up, I will win.”
For Whittaker, this fight is make rather than break.
“Nobody wants blips to happen but I’m happy it happened in a sense where it’s brought me back to earth. It’s brought me back to a position where I know the real me,” he said.
“Now I’m just back to me, back to my boxing and that’s when the best me will show.
“That’s why I just went quiet. I thought I don’t need to say nothing. They can talk if they want to talk. At the end of the day, judgement day will be coming soon.
“I just grow up. I think it’s the making of me.”
Speaking on Toe2Toe, Matthew Macklin, Barry Jones and Wayne Elcock discuss how Ben Whittaker might approach his rematch with Liam Cameron.
Whittaker added: “I ain’t been humbled. It just grounded me in a sense where there’s a lot more things bigger than boxing. There’s a lot more things bigger than my situation.
“With my life there’s been so many ups and downs and dark times, so something like that, I’ve been through worse if I’m honest.
“I truly believe nothing can faze me again.”
Cameron has had a hard route. He suffered a four-year ban from boxing after testing positive for a recreational drug. When he returned, only in 2023, he had weight to shed and personal issues to lay to rest. He needed the opportunity when he came up against Whittaker and he seized it.
The fallout from the first fight led Whittaker to Andy Lee’s boxing gym. That could be an excellent move for his development.
But Cameron still sees weakness in his opponent.
“He wants to blame everyone else, bar himself. The day he blames himself is the day he’ll get better,” the Sheffield man said. “I think he should take accountability that they tried to rush him with me and he wasn’t good enough on the night.
“Ben’s quite a deluded person, so he’s going to blame everything else when, really, it’s just his boxing.”
Ben Whittaker says he will pass the microphone to Liam Cameron once he wins their fight. The Gloves Are Off is available to watch now in full.
He doesn’t believe Whittaker is as confident as he appears.
“I saw that the last time. All this showboating is just to get a rest. That’s all it is,” Cameron said.
“You get a rest because your opponent either backs off from you and it boosts your confidence. He needs confidence boosting and his showboating’s that. There’s no stopping me going [like] that in the ring.
“I was pushing the pace, but nothing to what I could have. The fight was early. That’s the sad thing about it.
“It’ll be hard, won’t it? He’s not human if it’s not going to torture him,” Cameron added. “I’m looking for him to blow out in four rounds and just absolutely pummel him.”
But Whittaker might still incorporate showboating into his efforts on Sunday, if he wants to display the full array of his talents.
Ben Whittaker jokingly threatened Liam Cameron with an egg during ‘Gloves Are Off’ – but you’ll have to tune in to see if the two shook hands!
“It opens up a lot of doors, opens up a lot of opportunities,” he said of the onslaught expected from Cameron in the fight.
“It depends how he comes. If he comes a hundred miles an hour, nice and easy. If he comes to box, nice and easy, because you can’t box me either. So it depends how he tries to play it but we’ve got answers for everything.
“I’ve got an A plan, a B plan and a C plan, it just depends how I feel in the moment.
“I think you’ll get the full repertoire.”
Cameron, however, promises to be implacable in this fight. “He’s lying if he said he took me lightly. Definitely lying,” he said of Whittaker. “The occasion got to him. It wasn’t going his way.
“I know this is bad to say, but I’m one of those fighters who will fight to the death. I can say that about myself. We’ll soon find out [about him] in the rematch. I’ve always got that edge because I know I will not quit and he will look for a way out, it’s proven in his track record.
“If I can just win one more fight in boxing and lose every other one, it’ll be this one. [It’s] all I want. No world titles, no British title, this win.”
Ben Whittaker says he is ‘counting down the weeks’ to his second fight against Liam Cameron, ready to show him what he can do.
Whittaker knows the irrefutable response to Cameron would be simply to win himself.
“Him goading and saying these things, it’s landed him a big fight, it’s landed him another money fight and it’s kept his career alive,” Whittaker said.
“Just win and move on, that’s the mindset I’ve got,” he continued. “Ten years down in my career, when I’ve done what I’m supposed to do, we won’t be looking at this fight.
“I’ve turned up the way I’ve turned up, done the right things, he got the lucky draw from it and he’s got the bigger headline [fight] now. So fair play to him. These things do happen. But we’ll have to just stop it Sunday.”
Watch the Ben Whittaker vs Liam Cameron rematch live on Sky Sports Action from 7pm and Sky Sports Main Event from 8pm.
This news was originally published on this post .
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