{"id":556865,"date":"2026-04-29T12:05:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T12:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/556865\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T12:05:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T12:05:11","slug":"roy-jones-jr-names-the-heavyweight-who-will-give-moses-itauma-big-problems-hes-the-only-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/556865\/","title":{"rendered":"Roy Jones Jr names the heavyweight who will give Moses Itauma big problems: “He’s the only one”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Roy Jones Jr<\/a> believes Moses Itauma<\/a> is the most \u201cexciting heavyweight\u201d since Mike Tyson, but has named one man who would perhaps nullify his explosiveness.<\/p>\n

Despite having not fought any top-tier contenders, Itauma is widely regarded as a future world champion<\/a> who could reign supreme for many years to come.<\/p>\n

The 21-year-old claimed his most significant victory thus far in March, comfortably steamrolling the typically durable Jermaine Franklin in five rounds<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In doing so, Itauma has become the mandatory challenger to the winner of Fabio Wardley vs Daniel Dubois, which takes place for Wardley\u2019s WBO world heavyweight title on May 9.<\/p>\n

At this stage in his promising career, however, the precocious talent is yet to test himself at world level, with his only other two notable wins arriving against a faded Dillian Whyte and an overmatched Demsey McKean.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, on both of those occasions in 2025 and 2024, respectively, Itauma ended proceedings in the first two rounds and showed his world-class potential.<\/p>\n

Having passed the eye test, pound-for-pound legend Jones believes Itauma is capable of knocking out any heavyweight apart from Oleksandr Usyk<\/a>, who still holds the WBC, IBF and WBA world titles.<\/p>\n

Speaking with Grosvenor Casino<\/a>, Jones explains that Usyk\u2019s elusiveness and experience would likely cause the Brit problems, presenting him with a style he has never previously encountered.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs Moses Itauma the most exciting heavyweight since Mike Tyson? Right now, yes, I think he is. He\u2019s got the explosive punching power that Mike Tyson had; if you can hit them before they hit you, most of the time you\u2019re going to knock them out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what Mike did. So, if [Itauma] can do that, he will knock out most of the heavyweights. But, with Usyk, he\u2019s a little bit hard to hit.<\/p>\n

\u201cMoses gives all the heavyweights a hard time. You can\u2019t say he beats them until you put them in front of [him], because you haven\u2019t really seen him get cracked yet, but the only one I see [giving] him the biggest problem is Usyk.\u201d<\/p>\n

While many view Usyk vs Itauma as the most mouth-watering matchup in heavyweight boxing, it is difficult to see the pair ever crossing paths in a competitive sense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Roy Jones Jr believes Moses Itauma is the most \u201cexciting heavyweight\u201d since Mike Tyson, but has named one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-556865","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\/556865","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=556865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}