{"id":287744,"date":"2025-11-28T11:24:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T11:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/287744\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T11:24:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T11:24:07","slug":"oleksandr-usyk-has-made-up-his-mind-on-whether-he-will-face-moses-itauma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/287744\/","title":{"rendered":"Oleksandr Usyk has made up his mind on whether he will face Moses Itauma"},"content":{"rendered":"

Heavyweight king Oleksandr Usyk<\/a> has made his feelings clear regarding a potential clash with precocious talent Moses Itauma<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Many consider the 20-year-old to be the greatest threat to Usyk\u2019s supremacy, his sheer speed, athleticism and devastating power establishing him as a consensus heir apparent to the Ukrainian\u2019s throne.<\/p>\n

It is, of course, still early days for Itauma, whose best win arguably came against a game but limited Demsey McKean, who he stopped in the first round, towards the end of last year.<\/p>\n

More recently, the unbeaten knockout artist made light work of Dillian Whyte, a largely faded campaigner, who he halted with another one-round demolition job<\/a> this past August.<\/p>\n

In a more intriguing matchup, Itauma is now gearing up to face Jermaine Franklin Jr, a heavyweight known for his remarkable durability, on January 24.<\/p>\n

At the same time, though, the dynamic southpaw, wishing to prove his world-class credentials, has expressed no small amount of interest in a possible showdown with Usyk.<\/p>\n

More than anything, Itauma appears eager to cement himself as the best of his era and, right now, can only do so by toppling the two-division undisputed champion.<\/p>\n

Usyk, meanwhile, has revealed very little regarding his next move, though a decision to vacate his WBO title would suggest that newly-crowned world champion Fabio Wardley is not exactly on his radar<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Neither, it seems, is Itauma, with the masterful technician having told Ready to Fight<\/a> that he will not be exploring a matchup with the Brit.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I won\u2019t fight Itauma. He\u2019s young \u2013 always teasing me. And he said himself he doesn\u2019t hit grandpas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Usyk\u2019s last performance saw him secure a fifth-round stoppage victory over Daniel Dubois<\/a> and, in doing so, the 38-year-old became a three-time undisputed champion this past July.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Heavyweight king Oleksandr Usyk has made his feelings clear regarding a potential clash with precocious talent Moses Itauma.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250751,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-287744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}