Ben Whittaker Injury – Why No Updates?
The Ben Whittaker injury is a puzzle. In my three decades as a boxing fan, I’ve seen fights brought to a premature end by broken hands, cuts, achilles tendon injuries, shoulder dislocations…
On Saturday, I added ‘fall over the ropes resulting in a sprained ankle’ to that list.
Following the Ben Whittaker vs Liam Cameron fight being brought to an end, the accusations of quitting did the rounds. To be fair, there’s a few good reasons for it. Whittaker appeared to be losing the fight. He was getting tired. Cameron was beginning to dominate. For the first time in his professional career, Whittaker wasn’t having things all his own way.
And he knew it.
I’m going to stop short of labelling Ben Whittaker a quitter. The truth is all we have at this point are opinions, not facts.
I’ll say this though…
If I was Whittaker, or his promoter, I’d be rushing forward with the proof of the injury. I’d be fighting my corner, getting my message out there and proving that the injury was genuine and I hadn’t quit. In the age of social media, news spreads faster than any time in history. It’s harder to control a narrative.
Instead, there’s been nothing to calm the fire. We don’t know truly have the answer to the Ben Whittaker injury question. Sprained ankle? Seems unlikely. You’d need more proof than ‘trust me, bro’ if you want to state your case. Surely you’d be posting pictures of a swollen or bruised ankle? Something to help protect your reputation.
What We’ve Heard About the Ben Whittaker Injury So Far…
His promoter, Ben Shalom told Sky Sports…
“Following the unprecedented incident that ended the match on Saturday night, Ben Whittaker is undergoing further assessments on his neck as a previous injury was aggravated by the fall.
“He also experienced an ankle sprain and will begin a rehab process as soon as he is cleared by doctors and is determined to be back in the ring as soon as possible.”
That’s a statement, but it tells us little we didn’t already know. There’s no proof of an injury, no doctor’s report, or x-ray. It’s a guy whose sole motivation is to protect the reputation of his fighter telling us his guy didn’t quit. The Ben Whittaker injury story isn’t going to go away – as soon as a new bout is announced, it’ll be the first questions the journo’s will ask.
What makes the job of denying the story harder is the sheer amount of footage around the incident. Everyone has a camera phone now, broadcasters have lots of angles of fights. You can see the incident from different perspectives, and the same conclusions are drawn every time… We can’t see how the ankle is involved in the tumble over the ropes.
Whittaker was taken to hospital straight from the bout. At the time of writing, that’s all we have to go on. There’s been no official comment from Whittaker himself, nothing on social media, and no explanation of what happened.
There’s been plenty of time to get a report out.
If Whittaker wants to shake his quitter tag, he’s going to have to come out with something quickly. He’s probably left it too late already, and reputations are hard won, and easily lost. He’s been very quiet on his social media so far.
All of that showboating made him unlikeable to many, and there’ll be a lot of happy fight fans right now. I think he’s probably got this label for life now, regardless of what happens next. It’s too damaging at such a pivotal moment in his career. His promoter is about to engage on the toughest PR campaign of his life, desperate to prove the Ben Whittaker injury story is real, and his guy isn’t a quitter.
He could start by giving Liam Cameron the rematch her deserves…
