Whittaker (13-0-1, 9 KOs) dominated the first nine rounds of Saturday’s IBF light heavyweight final eliminator before alarmingly fading. The crowd inside Birmingham’s Utilita Arena held its breath as he was staggered and stunned by multiple left hands in the closing minutes.

Whittaker held on to the final bell, and his early lead secured the unanimous decision (117-111, 116-112, 115-113). 

The win puts the 29-year-old from Wolverhampton in line to face the winner of December 11’s title fight between Ring, IBF, WBO and WBA champion Dmitry Bivol and Callum Smith. Hearn and Lee could alter those plans. 

“You never know. It's down to Eddie, down to Andy,” he said at the post-fight press conference.

“For me, I just fight who’s in front of me. It would be nice [to fight for a world title], of course, but it'd be nice as well to probably clean that kid [Wallace] out properly. I'll be back in the gym as soon as possible just neatening a few things up and yeah, I'm ready to go.”

Despite controlling the fight from the very start, Whittaker did tire and take punishment. Lee shared post-fight that Whittaker had been laid low by coronavirus during his final preparations, but the Wolverhampton puncher refused to blame illness for his performance, insisting he never came close to withdrawing.

“Nah, at the end of the day, you never know what he [Wallace] went through. He could have had injuries, niggles, he could have been ill. But for me, I'd made no excuse,” he said.

“You didn't hear me talk about it. Couple of sniffles, a bit of a temperature but I look juicy for the first 10 rounds and we move on, man. I won at the end of the day.”