Queensberry Boxing Faces Tough Choice: Does Young Moses Itauma Risk Career Derailment Against Usyk?

Moses Itauma’s first-round obliteration of Dillian Whyte last Saturday night has British fans calling for him to face the King of the heavyweight division, Oleksandr Usyk, next for all the gold.

Queensberry has to decide whether they want to rush the 20-year-old Itauma into a world title fight against the vastly more experienced Usyk. You can’t blame them if they’re reluctant to do that.

After the way that Oleksandr twice dealt with Daniel Dubois, knocking him out, and derailing his career at an early age, why would Queensberry want that to happen to Itauma? The way Itauma fought, Usyk would have easily solved that style and picked him apart.

Dubois 2.0 Warning

Moses looked very deliberate with his bread-and-butter punch, the left hand. Usyk would have neutralized that weapon last Saturday, taking the inexperienced prospect into the second half of the fight and exposing him as yet another pretender to the throne. In other words, Dubois 2.0. Itauma is being hyped just like Dubois was after victories over similar low-level opposition. It’s like Deja Vu. History repeats itself with a different name, but the same formula of scrubs being fed and immediate hype from fans, looking for a new hero.

If you actually look at how Itauma performed inside the ring last Saturday, it wasn’t very complicated. He jabbed to the body against the slow, weak, and feeble-looking 37-year-old Whyte (31-4, 21 KOs).

Rabbit Punches and a Win

When Itauma saw that Dillian was afraid to throw punches, he unloaded his artillery on him, hurting him with two rabbit punches to drop him. That was it. When Whyte got up, the fight was halted because he was too hurt from the punches to the back of the head. The only impressive thing that Itauma did in the fight was land a couple of well-placed rabbit shots that the referee should have seen.

“People are comparing him to a young Mike Tyson. At this stage in his life, Mike Tyson had 28 fights before he won a world title against Trevor Berbick [in 1986 at age 20]. This kid has had 12,” said Simon Jordan at talkSport boxing, talking about Moses Itauma.

Itauma lacks the toughness and grit that a young 20-year-old Mike Tyson showed when he first won his world title against Berbick. Tyson wasn’t afraid to stand in the pocket and throw bombs. Itauma fights more like Shakur Stevenson, moving around, throwing single shots, and retreating three feet at the first sign of aggression.

No Progression in Style

He’s been fighting like this since he was an amateur. There has been no progression by Moses in his fundamental style. The only difference is he’s put on weight, getting chunkier as he’s aged. What Itauma was then, he is now. No improvement, no development. His opposition is even worse as a pro than it was when he was fighting in the amateur ranks. That’s saying a lot because Itauma never fought on the world stage in his brief 20-fight career before turning pro.

“Usyk has probably seen the likes of Moses Itauma years ago in the amateur game. Itauma would ask Usyk questions that he hasn’t seen in a long time. Can Usyk solve them? There’s nothing to say that he couldn’t solve them. He’s solved every other problem that’s come his way, hasn’t he? I would probably back Usyk right now in that fight,” said Adam Catterall.