{"id":501657,"date":"2026-03-29T11:12:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T11:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/501657\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T11:12:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T11:12:12","slug":"moses-itauma-set-to-become-mandatory-challenger-for-wbo-heavyweight-title-with-daniel-dubois-or-stablemate-fabio-wardley-in-sight-boxing-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/501657\/","title":{"rendered":"Moses Itauma set to become mandatory challenger for WBO heavyweight title with Daniel Dubois or stablemate Fabio Wardley in sight | Boxing News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Moses Itauma is set to become the mandatory challenger for the WBO heavyweight title &#8211; potentially putting him on a collision course with stablemate Fabio Wardley.<\/p>\n<p>Itauma, 21, produced another emphatic result on Saturday night, handing a first stoppage defeat to Jermaine Franklin as he recorded a fifth-round victory in Manchester, taking his record to 14-0 with 12 of those wins achieved via knockout.<\/p>\n<p>WBO president Gustavo Olivieri posted on social media platform X that after Itauma &#8220;further affirmed his standing within the division as a rising star&#8221; the Brit would be &#8220;formally recommended&#8221; for a shot at the organisation&#8217;s heavyweight belt.<\/p>\n<p>        Twitter<\/p>\n<p>                This content is provided by Twitter, which may be using cookies and other technologies.<br \/>\n                To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies.<br \/>\n                You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable Twitter cookies or to allow those cookies just once.<br \/>\n                You can change your settings at any time via the <a href=\"#privacy-options\">Privacy Options<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>                Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Twitter cookies.<br \/>\n                To view this content you can use the button below to allow Twitter cookies for this session only.<\/p>\n<p>                <a href=\"#\" class=\"ui-consent-roadblock-body__link ui-consent-roadblock-permanently\" data-single-click-vendor-name=\"twitter\" data-show-on-fallback=\"false\" data-testid=\"consent-roadblock-allow\">Enable Cookies<\/a><br \/>\n                <a href=\"#\" class=\"ui-consent-roadblock-body__link ui-consent-roadblock-once\" data-single-click-vendor-name=\"twitter\" data-testid=\"consent-roadblock-allow-once\">Allow Cookies Once<\/a><\/p>\n<p>                    <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"sdc-article-quote__image-element\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/skysports-moses-itauma-boxing_7205930.jpg\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>\n                When I first turned professional, I thought I would win titles but I didn&#8217;t think it would be so soon. I&#8217;m just a young boy chasing a dream.<\/p>\n<p>                    Moses Itauma, after beating Jermaine Franklin<\/p>\n<p>Wardley &#8211; who shares trainer Ben Davison with Itauma &#8211; will defend that championship against Daniel Dubois on May 9, so if he wins it could lead to a &#8220;sticky predicament&#8221;, according to Itauma.<\/p>\n<p>The up-and-comer said before knocking out Franklin: &#8220;I think Fabio can [beat Dubois]. Fabio keeps surprising everyone. If you write him off he&#8217;ll end up smashing Dubois out.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t really know what to expect from Fabio but I&#8217;d probably say Fabio wins.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s obviously in the same gym as me so that would be a sticky predicament. Everything can make sense, it all makes sense.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>          <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"sdc-article-image__item\" loading=\"lazy\" intrinsicsize=\"768x432\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/skysports-moses-itauma-boxing_7205926.jpg\"   alt=\"Moses Itauma\" data-testid=\"article-image-image\"\/><\/p>\n<p>        Image:<br \/>\n        Itauma&#8217;s record is now 14-0, with 12 wins coming via knockout<\/p>\n<p>Speaking late last year, before he was promoted to full WBO champion following Oleksandr Usyk vacating the title, Wardley told Sky Sports about a potential showdown with Itauma: &#8220;Who knows how the future&#8217;s going to go?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Right now me and Moses are on our own courses. We both need to grab our world titles first, before we&#8217;re able to have conversations about crossing swords ourselves.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s enough out there for the pair of us to have a go at and just occupy ourselves before we need to start having a serious think about getting in the ring at the same time.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>          <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"sdc-article-image__item\" loading=\"lazy\" intrinsicsize=\"768x432\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/skysports-moses-itauma-boxing_7205941.jpg\"   alt=\"Moses Itauma \" data-testid=\"article-image-image\"\/><\/p>\n<p>        Image:<br \/>\n        Itauma wants Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury &#8211; but expects to be made to wait<\/p>\n<p>Itauma wants Fury and Usyk &#8211; but expects to have to wait<\/p>\n<p>In the build-up to his fight with Franklin, Itauma told Sky Sports he would &#8220;love&#8221; a crack at Usyk &#8211; but that he does not expect that to happen any time soon.<\/p>\n<p>He feels the same regarding a blockbuster bout with Tyson Fury, who will return to the ring in April to take on Arslanbek Makhmudov at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Why would Usyk fight me?&#8221; said Itauma. &#8220;Obviously he&#8217;s got other people on the agenda. Not only that he&#8217;s got a whole list of people that, I guess, are in front of me.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think Tyson would want to take [a fight]. I don&#8217;t know. For example, he&#8217;s got a big fight with Anthony Joshua, a fight can still gross massively.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He knows there are a lot of other fights he probably would be able to make more money off and they wouldn&#8217;t be as much of a fight. It doesn&#8217;t really make sense for him.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Usyk and Fury may be a way off, then, but Dubois or Wardley seemingly not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Moses Itauma is set to become the mandatory challenger for the WBO heavyweight title &#8211; potentially putting him&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-501657","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501657","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=501657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}