Rather than a straight crack at the winner of an upcoming title fight between Ring, unified champion Dmitry Bivol and Callum Smith, Hearn will instead keep his charge busy.

Whittaker (13-0-1, 9 KOs) has been positioned as one of the men capable of putting British boxing on his shoulders and carrying it through the next couple of years.

After beating Wallace (17-2, 12 KOs) in their IBF 175-pound final eliminator, Whittaker guaranteed he will be involved in bigger nights and fights come 2027.

Incredibly, a rematch with the Australia-based Irishman may feature among them.

The Wolverhampton rising star coasted through nine rounds but chose to pick and poke his way to the finish line, rather than press his obvious advantages. Wallace remained safe and when finally letting his hands go over the final three rounds, came within a punch or two of causing a major upset.

Whittaker’s trainer Andy Lee claimed his man had been ill with COVID-19 during the fight's build-up. Whatever the reasons for this late scare, a Bivol fight would represent a monumental step up in class from Saturday.

The Russian has a reported December 11 title defense against WBO mandatory challenger Smith to deal with, and Hearn will use the timeline to keep his rising star busy.

“Going into this fight, if he would have looked sensational and destroyed Conor Wallace, I think we would have been in a position to say, “Let's go into Bivol or Callum Smith. For me, no, he needs another fight. Now when I look at it, I think that's the [Joshua] Buatsi-[Willy] Hutchinson winner, that’s [Anthony] Yarde, or it's Conor Wallace.

“I'm happy to make that fight [again] because if we're going to be serious, to beat the likes of Bivol and Smith, all due respect to Conor ... Ben needs to be beating Conor Wallace impressively.”