{"id":798157,"date":"2026-10-10T14:20:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T14:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/798157\/"},"modified":"2026-10-10T14:20:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T14:20:14","slug":"carl-froch-sums-up-ben-whittakers-chances-of-beating-dmitry-bivol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/798157\/","title":{"rendered":"Carl Froch sums up Ben Whittaker&#8217;s chances of beating Dmitry Bivol"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Carl Froch has considered whether Ben Whittaker is ready to face Dmitry Bivol following his unanimous decision victory over Conor Wallace last weekend.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018The Surgeon\u2019 dominated his first nine rounds against Wallace, making the most of advantages in speed and ring IQ to build a sizable lead on the judges\u2019 scorecards.<\/p>\n<p>In round 10, however, Wallace began piling on the pressure and seemed to get a reaction out of Whittaker, who was now lacking his usual sharpness and elusiveness.<\/p>\n<p>The 29-year-old then showcased his survival instincts in round 12, when at least one of his three trips to the canvas could have been ruled a knockdown.<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, though, Whittaker was able to ride out the storm and, by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.co.uk\/boxing\/story\/_\/id\/50090372\/crossDomain\/crossDomain\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">winning his IBF final eliminator<\/a>, will soon be named as the mandatory challenger to Bivol.<\/p>\n<p>First, the unified light-heavyweight champion <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/news\/bivol-next-fight-finally-signed\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">must defend his IBF, WBO and WBA belts against Callum Smith<\/a>, who he is expected to face on December 12 in Russia.<\/p>\n<p>If he emerges victorious, the Russian is then likely to target fights against former rival Artur Beterbiev or David Benavidez, but would also be ordered to defend his IBF strap against Whittaker.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/RpZ16boMNlw?si=myLlKbssiMJekQU2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">his YouTube channel<\/a>, however, Hall of Famer Froch suggested the Brit is nowhere near Bivol\u2019s level.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf he wants to step up to world level, there\u2019ll be people looking at this [his fight with Wallace] \u2013 people like Dmitry Bivol and Artur Beterbiev, if he\u2019s still fighting \u2013 and they\u2019ll be laughing at this.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot in a bad way \u2013 they\u2019ll just be saying, \u2018Right, okay. Easy night\u2019s work\u2019. Ben Whittaker\u2019s not ready to step up to that level. You wouldn\u2019t give Ben Whittaker a cat in hell\u2019s chance against someone like Dmitry Bivol.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While he now holds a desirable position with the IBF, Whittaker did express an openness to rematching Wallace before pursuing a world title shot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carl Froch has considered whether Ben Whittaker is ready to face Dmitry Bivol following his unanimous decision victory&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":798158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-798157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=798157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/798158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}