{"id":815539,"date":"2026-07-22T01:30:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T01:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/815539\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T01:30:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T01:30:18","slug":"heavyweight-leo-atang-19-believes-hes-up-there-with-them-all-skill-wise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/815539\/","title":{"rendered":"Heavyweight Leo Atang, 19, believes he’s up there with them all ‘skill-wise’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Heavyweight prospect Leo Atang took just two rounds to improve to 8-0 (7 KOs) with victory over Glen Williams in Los Angeles last weekend.
Still only 19, the Matchroom-promoted Atang sees himself as one of the next crop of young heavyweight stars coming through, including Irishman Adam Olaniyan and Australia\u2019s Teremoana.
\u201cAs it stands, fair enough, [Moses] Itauma\u2019s probably up there [at the top now],\u201d said Atang. \u201cHe\u2019s in talks for getting world title fights and stuff like that. But skill-wise and everything else, I see myself up there with them all and I think that they\u2019re the names which are going to be the ones for the future.\u201d
Olaniyan, managed by Brian Peters, is 2-0 (2 KOs) and already has his next two dates in the diary.
\u201cYeah, I know Adam,\u201d Atang said. \u201cHe was at the amateur tournaments when I was there. I\u2019ve sparred him and stuff like that. He\u2019s a nice lad. He\u2019s good. Good fighter. Not much more to say.\u201d
Whether their paths cross in the future, and Olaniyan is promoted by Queensberry, remains to be seen, but Atang is focused only on his own journey and not anyone else\u2019s.
\u201cI\u2019m not bothered [about Olaniyan],\u201d Atang added. \u201cBut it\u2019s like, I want to be a world champion. So anyone who\u2019s going to get in the way of that, end of the day, we\u2019re going to have to fight. So it\u2019s not personal, but it\u2019s all business. And I\u2019m more than happy to take them fights.\u201d
Of course, the heavyweights will take center stage this week when Tyson Fury fights in Thailand Friday and Anthony Joshua boxes in Saudi Arabia the following day against Mariusz Wach and Kristian Prenga respectively.
While Atang is learning the business, he knows where he would like the eventual Fury-Joshua fight to take place.
\u201cI think it\u2019s got to be England,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s got to be Wembley. Two big British names. It\u2019s not even just like two big fighters, but they kind of are the two sort of superstars of British boxing. So them two fighting each other is massive. They could sell Wembley out many times. So it\u2019s kind of got to be there.\u201d
What does Atang think of the proposed 2am start time to appease Netflix executives who think that it would make the fight more appealing in America?
\u201cIt\u2019s a bit weird, but I just want to see the fight happen,\u201d said Atang. \u201cI\u2019m on board when it is, as long as the fight happens. You\u2019ve got to go where the money is.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Heavyweight prospect Leo Atang took just two rounds to improve to 8-0 (7 KOs) with victory over Glen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":720883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,1920,6653,249885,85],"class_list":["post-815539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-news","tag-boxingscene","tag-leo-atang","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815539","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=815539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/720883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=815539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=815539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}