{"id":601335,"date":"2026-05-24T11:36:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T11:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/601335\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T11:36:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T11:36:08","slug":"oleksandr-usyk-beats-rico-verhoeven-what-next-for-heavyweight-division","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/601335\/","title":{"rendered":"Oleksandr Usyk beats Rico Verhoeven: What next for heavyweight division?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Moses Itauma continues to gather momentum as the most exciting British heavyweight prospect in years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 21-year-old produced an impressive fifth-round stoppage win over Jermaine Franklin in March, becoming the first fighter to stop the American in 27 professional bouts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A title shot for Itauma is edging closer, although Usyk has previously ruled out facing him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Itauma is expected to return on 8 August at London&#8217;s O2 Arena against a significantly ranked opponent, with Croatia&#8217;s Filip Hrgovic currently viewed as the leading option.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Hrgovic brings strong pedigree, having won Olympic bronze in 2016. Most recently, he stopped Dave Allen in dominant fashion this month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It would represent another significant step up for Itauma before a potential move towards the winner of Dubois-Wardley in 2027, although any meeting with Wardley would be complicated by the fact that both he and Itauma are trained by Ben Davison.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Elsewhere, veteran American Deontay Wilder is yet to announce his next move since beating Britain&#8217;s Derek Chisora, who is reportedly considering a U-turn on retirement, while British champion Richard Riakporhe remains active in the domestic picture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Moses Itauma continues to gather momentum as the most exciting British heavyweight prospect in years. The 21-year-old produced&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":601336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-601335","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\/601335","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=601335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}