Moses Itauma and Dillian Whyte will face off on August 16th in a heavyweight clash that could be a passing of the torch moment for the young star.
Moses Itauma is a 20-year-old with heaps of potential and, after just 12 fights, has been touted by Turki Alalshikh as the worthy next opponent of Oleksandr Usyk, the pound-for-pound number one.
Whyte, meanwhile, has north of 30 fights, and a whole host of experience on the biggest stages against the biggest names.
Despite his youth, Whyte’s experience and resilience could be the difference between an easy night’s work for Itauma, and a major banana skin on the young heavyweight’s rise to the top.
The pair have just one common opponent, and looking into how they both fared against him could indicate how the fight might go.
Moses Itauma outclassed Dillian Whyte with KO over Mariusz Wach
Both Itauma and Whyte have just one common opponent, a man who has also faced Wladimir Klitschko, Jarrell Miller, Hughie Fury, Martin Bakole, Kevin Lerena, Frazer Clarke, and Arslanbek Makhmudov, who Dave Allen will face next.
That man is none other than Mariusz Wach.
Whyte, who must drag Itauma into deep waters, his trainer says, faced Wach in 2019, when he was 35-5 and Whyte was 26-1.
Whyte came in at a career-heaviest weight, weighing at 271lbs, and labored to a unanimous decision win over the Polish fighter.
Five years later, Wach was put into the ring against Itauma. Though Wach was 38-10 at the time, the young Itauma had not even had 10 fights, and was 9-0 going into the match.
Though Wach had more mileage on the clock at this point, Itauma outperformed Whyte in dramatic fashion, stopping Wach in just two rounds.
Wach has only been stopped five times in his entire career, and Itauma did it quicker than anyone else ever has.
Moses Itauma one-upped four heavyweights with Wach KO
With his second-round stoppage of Wach, Itauma outperformed not only every fighter to go to a decision against the Pole, but also four hard-hitting heavyweights.
Wach was stopped for the first time in 2015 by Alexander Povetkin, who stopped him with two minutes and 10 seconds left to go in the final round.
Jarrell Miller was the next man to stop Wach, though it also took him a while, finishing the veteran in nine rounds.
Two fights later, Martin Bakole took eight rounds to get the job done, and, in 2022, Arslanbek Makhmudov became the quickest man to do it as he stopped Wach in six rounds.
Itauma knocked out Wach three times quicker than he had ever been stopped before, not just outperforming Whyte, but putting the heavyweight division on notice.