{"id":613205,"date":"2026-04-18T21:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T21:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/613205\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T21:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T21:58:08","slug":"ben-whittaker-delivers-first-round-knockout-as-eddie-hearn-heralds-superstar-potential","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/613205\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Whittaker delivers first-round knockout as Eddie Hearn heralds &#8216;superstar potential&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Apr 18, 2026, 05:48 PM ET<img class=\" lazyload lazyload\" data-image-container=\".inline-photo\" height=\"320\" width=\"570\"\/>Ben Whittaker now has two straight knockouts following his victory over Benjamin Gavazi in November.\u00a0(Photo by Lewis Storey\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<p>Ben Whittaker claimed his second successive first-round knockout victory as promoter Eddie Hearn tipped the Birmingham light-heavyweight to be &#8220;ready for every 175 pounds fighter in the world&#8221; in 2027.<\/p>\n<p>Whittaker needed just two minutes and 24 seconds to beat Argentina&#8217;s Braian Nahuel Suarez, who was sent crashing to the canvas by an overhand right in Liverpool and failed to beat the referee&#8217;s count.<\/p>\n<p>The Tokyo 2020 silver medalist (now 11-0-1, 8 KOs) said on DAZN: &#8220;The more I get in this ring, the more experience I get, the more comfortable I get, it&#8217;s dangerous [for my rivals].&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Hearn revealed Whittaker will be back in action on June 27, making his American debut on the Jaron Ennis-Xander Zayas undercard in Brooklyn, before headlining in his home city later this year.<\/p>\n<p>Hearn added: &#8220;I truly believe in 2027 he&#8217;ll be ready for every 175 pounds fighter in the world. We&#8217;ve finally got someone in this country with superstar potential who could go out and beat them all.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Apr 18, 2026, 05:48 PM ETBen Whittaker now has two straight knockouts following his victory over Benjamin Gavazi&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-613205","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}