Light heavyweight Ben Whittaker (12-0-1, 9 KOs) secured a clinical second-round stoppage of Richard Rivera (27-3, 20 KOs) at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on his US debut on the undercard of Jaron Ennis vs. Xander Zayas.
Whittaker dropped Rivera with a right hand at the end of the first round, though Rivera protested the punch had caught the back of his head. Whittaker settled the argument early in the second, dropping him again with a sharp left hand before the referee waved it off. The victory was all the more impressive since it was the first time Rivera was stopped.
“I hit him, and he went to sleep. When you hit them like that, that’s all she wrote,” Whittaker