2<\/p>\n Itauma is the most exciting prospect in heavyweight boxingCredit: Getty<\/p>\n That is according to Olympian Anthony Fowler, who claims Itauma rocked up to Shane McGuigan’s Gym in his school uniform before winding Okolie with a sickening body shot. <\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI walk in the gym and there’s a kid there in a f****** school uniform, I thought he was half-lost,\u201d Fowler told BoxingScene.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I get up and say, \u2018What are you here for?\u2019 He went, \u2018Sparring.\u2019 I went, \u2018Who are you sparring with?\u2019 And he went, \u2018Lawrence.\u2019 I said, \u2018How old are you?\u2019 <\/p>\n “He went, \u201816.\u2019 I thought, \u2018F****** hell, God bless you, mate.\u2019 Lawrence can punch hard, he’s a big, strong fella, he’s massive.<\/p>\n \u201cLawrence was sparring three lads. So Lawrence sparred the first two lads and then Moses jumped in fresh, and Lawrence had done six rounds already, so he was a bit tired. <\/p>\n “This kid just went forward the whole spar, throwing bombs. <\/p>\n “I think he half-winded Lawrence with the left hand to the body.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was relentless for three rounds on him, throwing non-stop punches. No one could believe it in the gym. <\/p>\n “Everyone said, \u2018What the f***?\u2019 Because obviously, Lawrence was not in control. <\/p>\n “He was a world champion; he’s normally in control of his sparring partners. <\/p>\n 2<\/p>\n Itauma is said to have winded Okolie in sparring when he was 16Credit: Getty<\/p>\n “So when this lad was like, this young boy, who was really on it, I was like, wow.\u201d<\/p>\n Two years after his spar with Okolie, Itauma signed a professional contract with Frank Warren<\/a>‘s Queensberry Promotions. <\/p>\n The 20-year-old has gone on to have a faultless 12-0 start to life in the paid ranks and is now set to take his biggest step up to date in his next fight.<\/p>\n On August 16 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Itauma will meet former world title challenger Dillian Whyte<\/a>.<\/p>\n Provided he comes through his next outing unscathed, Saudi boxing chief Turki Alalshikh is eyeing a cross-generational clash between him and current undisputed heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk.<\/a><\/p>\n However, it seems more likely that Joseph Parker<\/a> will land the title shot, given that he has been ordered by the WBO to box the Ukrainian next.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Precocious heavyweight talent Moses Itauma was putting Britain’s best boxers on notice way before he turned over as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,1920,4022,17735,23991,23990,85],"class_list":["post-24249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-news","tag-lawrence-okolie","tag-moses-itauma","tag-sparring","tag-sparring-stories","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Itauma](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/GettyImages-2190987791_f74367.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Itauma](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/GettyImages-2188762760.jpg\")
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