{"id":590970,"date":"2026-05-18T17:49:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T17:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/590970\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T17:49:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T17:49:07","slug":"moses-itauma-gives-honest-verdict-on-whether-hell-fight-oleksandr-usyk-before-he-retires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/590970\/","title":{"rendered":"Moses Itauma gives honest verdict on whether he’ll fight Oleksandr Usyk before he retires"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many boxing fans are hoping that Moses Itauma<\/a> could challenge for Oleksandr Usyk<\/a>\u2019s unified heavyweight throne before the latter retires, and now Itauma has revealed whether or not he believes the fight will happen.<\/p>\n

Itauma has been linked to a shot at 39-year-old Usyk since he knocked out Dillian Whyte last August, but those suggestions turned into demands after the youngster dismantled Jermaine Franklin Jr in Manchester six weeks ago.<\/p>\n

However, Usyk has declared that he would \u2018break\u2019 Itauma if the pair were to fight<\/a> and has shared a lack of interest in the proposed contest, unwilling to deal too much damage to a man who could be his successor.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, calls for the fight remain, with plenty of fans believing that the fearlessness and exuberance of Itauma could provide Usyk with his toughest possible fight.<\/p>\n

Still, in an interview with talkSPORT Boxing<\/a>, Itauma admitted that, as much as he would love it to, he does not believe that a showdown between him and Usyk will ever take place.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think that it will happen, but I would love it to happen.<\/p>\n

\u201c[It is] 100% [a chance to take the torch from Usyk]. If I get the opportunity, of course, but there is no reason for him [to want to fight me].\u201d<\/p>\n

Usyk defends his WBC heavyweight world title against Rico Verhoeven at the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt next weekend, that being the first outing of a planned three-fight run which will end in his retirement<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many boxing fans are hoping that Moses Itauma could challenge for Oleksandr Usyk\u2019s unified heavyweight throne before the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590971,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-590970","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\/590970","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=590970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}