{"id":676649,"date":"2026-07-06T12:23:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T12:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/676649\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T12:23:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T12:23:08","slug":"moses-itauma-warned-that-title-shot-against-devastating-heavyweight-is-too-soon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/676649\/","title":{"rendered":"Moses Itauma warned that title shot against ‘devastating’ heavyweight is ‘too soon’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Moses Itauma has been advised against taking a world title shot, or rather one that involves a formidable opponent.<\/p>\n

The 21-year-old already has a fight lined up against Filip Hrgovic, but could soon become one of the youngest heavyweight champions in history.<\/p>\n

This achievement would put him in the same breath as Mike Tyson, Muhammad Ali and Floyd Patterson, but first Itauma must come through his assignment on August 29.<\/p>\n

Taking on the most significant challenge of his career, the unbeaten prodigy will face Hrgovic at London\u2019s O2 Arena in his third Queensberry main event.<\/p>\n

With Oleksandr Usyk having vacated his three belts<\/a>, though, Itauma could potentially secure a major title shot before even entering his next outing.<\/p>\n

This is because the IBF have ordered a vacant title fight between Itauma and Frank Sanchez<\/a>, who became the sanctioning body\u2019s mandatory challenger in May.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Cuban Flash\u2019 earned his position with a stunning second-round finish over Richard Torrez Jr, while his only defeat came against WBC champion Agit Kabayel in 2024.<\/p>\n

Itauma, meanwhile, has previously turned down an ordered fight with the 33-year-old, whose manager, Mike Borao, has told Sky Sports<\/a> that his client\u2019s next opponent is neither here nor there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was surprised when Moses initially turned down the final eliminator against Frank recently.<\/p>\n

\u201cMoses is an incredible talent with massive upside. I myself am a fan of Moses, but a fight with Frank is probably a bit too soon, since he is young and there are other paths to a title for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the end, it doesn\u2019t matter who Frank boxes because, as I have always said, a healthy Frank Sanchez with [trainer] Eddy Reynoso and Canelo [Alvarez] in his corner beats anyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoxing fans saw the devastation a healthy Frank Sanchez is capable of against Richard Torrez.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanchez was hampered by a knee injury during the Kabayel fight, which resulted in an eighth-round stoppage defeat, but the Cuban has since undergone surgery and seems in a much stronger position.<\/p>\n

As for his potential clash with Itauma, both sides have until July 29 to reach an agreement, otherwise their ordered showdown will go to a purse bid hearing.<\/p>\n

In the event that Itauma withdraws his interest, Sanchez will be ordered to face the next available contender in the IBF rankings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Moses Itauma has been advised against taking a world title shot, or rather one that involves a formidable…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":674758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-676649","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\/676649","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=676649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=676649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=676649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=676649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}