{"id":829406,"date":"2026-07-27T15:15:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T15:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/829406\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T15:15:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T15:15:09","slug":"oleksandr-usyk-says-one-man-is-the-future-of-the-heavyweight-division-hes-special","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/829406\/","title":{"rendered":"Oleksandr Usyk says one man is the future of the heavyweight division: “He’s special”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oleksandr Usyk<\/a> has named his successor, believing that one man has the right mindset and temperament to become a dominant champion.<\/p>\n

The Ukrainian vacated his three world titles<\/a> last month, but remains the lineal heavyweight king as he inches closer towards retirement.<\/p>\n

With just one fight remaining, it is unlikely that he will be dethroned in the ring but, either way, a new heavyweight ruler should be crowned soon enough.<\/p>\n

Two men to have benefited from the splintering of Usyk\u2019s belts are Agit Kabayel and Murat Gassiev, the respective WBC and WBA champions, who are rumoured to be exploring a unification match.<\/p>\n

Equally, though, Daniel Dubois has a strong claim to the throne after dethroning Fabio Wardley for the WBO title<\/a> in May.<\/p>\n

Despite his two previous defeats to Usyk, the 28-year-old is now regarded by many as the world\u2019s No.2 heavyweight following his 11th-round finish over Wardley.<\/p>\n

But while giving credit to both Dubois and Kabayel, in particular, Usyk ultimately believes that rising star Moses Itauma will reign supreme.<\/p>\n

Speaking to DAZN<\/a>, the 39-year-old credited Itauma for displaying a level of maturity that belies his age of 21.<\/p>\n

\u201cItauma, for me, is a special guy. He\u2019s very relaxed before fights [and] after fights. No trash talking. Just training. [He\u2019s the] future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before anything else, Itauma must first defeat Filip Hrgovic, a consensus top 10 heavyweight, at London\u2019s O2 Arena on August 29.<\/p>\n

The talented prodigy could then end up facing Frank Sanchez for the vacant IBF title, being that they are the sanctioning body\u2019s leading contenders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oleksandr Usyk has named his successor, believing that one man has the right mindset and temperament to become…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":829407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-829406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=829406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/829407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=829406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=829406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=829406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}