Moses Itauma and Dillian Whyte are good to go for Saturday, with the heavyweights hitting the scales today in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
37-year-old Whyte (31-3, 21 KO), the veteran underdog and more experienced man in the matchup, came in at 244.1 lbs. He’d looked in good shape in the lead-up to the bout, and the result on the scale was Whyte’s lowest weight in a decade, going back before he’d even really started making any real name for himself in the sport. That could be good, but we’ve also seen veterans do this sort of thing before, and it does sometimes mean they’ve over-trained. We’ll find out in the ring on Saturday.
Whyte was a bit over 261 lbs for his last fight in December, for what it’s worth, and hadn’t been under 250 lbs since his 2021 rematch win over Alexander Povetkin.
Top prospect Moses Itauma steps up against veteran Dillian Whyte this Saturday on DAZN PPV! Order now and catch all the action live!
Stream Itauma vs Whyte on DAZN PPV
20-year-old Itauma (12-0, 10 KO), the hot prospect and heavy favorite, weighed in at 235.5 as listed by DAZN, though Michael Buffer did announce 245.5. The 235 weight would be the lowest of Itauma’s young pro career, while the 245 would still be lower than his weights against either Demsey McKean or Mike Balogun, his two most recent foes.
Whyte was asked about a bit of jawing from Itauma at Thursday’s press conference, but calmly brushed it off.
“I don’t pay attention to all that. Listen, I’m a chill guy until people mess about with me,” Whyte said. “For me, I don’t need to be a bully and go crazy. I can just switch (it on). So I said, ‘Yo, relax, bro, take it easy. We’re good, man. Me and you ain’t got no beef. This is business, chill out.’”
He was then asked, however, about telling talkSPORT that if it came down to it he’d fight Itauma’s entire time. Whyte replied, “Well, listen, I’ll run through them and start brawling. I don’t give a damn.”
“I’ve been in training for 12 weeks, 12 tough weeks, and honestly the last three, four weeks, I’ve been saying to (trainer) Ben (Davison), ‘I just want to get to the easy bit.’ That’s the fight,” Itauma said.
Itauma added, when sizing up Whyte’s conditioning, “We’re two good fighters, I’ve got the utmost respect for Dillian. It’s nothing personal, (it’s) business.” But he also said that when he looked into Whyte’s eyes today, he saw “a wounded animal.”
Bad Left Hook will be here for live coverage tomorrow, starting from 12:45 pm ET.
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