Dillian Whyte’s trainer, the veteran Buddy McGirt, isn’t counting on tape study to guide Whyte’s plan ahead of the heavyweight’s August 16 fight with Moses Itauma.
“To be one thousand percent honest with you, I have never seen Moses fight,” McGirt said in a recent interview. “So I really don’t know what he’s ready for. He’s gotta bring it all.
“I says, ‘Dill, listen, let’s just be realistic here. What could this kid do that you haven’t already seen?’ But can that kid ask the same question? Can Dillian do something that this kid hasn’t seen before?”
The 37-year-old Whyte (31-3, 21 KO) has definitely seen just about all there is to see from the modern heavyweight division. He’s faced and lost to Anthony Joshua, Alexander Povetkin, and Tyson Fury, and he’s faced and beaten Joseph Parker, Derek Chisora (twice), and Povetkin, among others.
The longtime contender has never quite won a world title, but he’s been in there with several of the division’s best. The 20-year-old Itauma (12-0, 10 KO), whom McGirt calls “a good young prospect,” seems to have all the promise in the world, but even the most heavily-hyped and believed-in prospects do sometimes come up short when they make a jump up the ladder to face stiffer competition.
The biggest question, perhaps, is whether today’s Dillian Whyte is stiffer enough competition to throw a wrench into the big plans in place for Itauma’s immediate future.