The Chatham-born fighter is just 20 years old, yet has been touted by many as the next big thing in the heavyweight division. Itauma\u2019s a major favorite to defeat \u2018The Bodysnatcher\u2019<\/a>, even despite Whyte\u2019s impressive weight loss<\/a>.<\/p>\n A win, though, is never guaranteed, and David Haye<\/a> has warned Itauma of one thing ahead of the major fight that could make him a household name.<\/p>\n Ahead of the fight, Whyte likened himself to Carl Thompson<\/a>, who, at the age of 40, stopped a rising star in David Haye, even when everyone had written Thompson off, believing Haye would make light work of him.<\/p>\n Now the man who was on the receiving end of Thompson\u2019s knockout victory has made the same comparison, warning Itauma not to do what he had done going into the step-up fight.<\/p>\n Haye spoke on his loss to Thompson, stating, \u201cFor some reason, I didn\u2019t believe Carl Thompson was going to be able to roll back the years. You know, I thought what I had was enough to get him out in a few rounds.\u201d<\/p>\n The British legend elaborated, suggesting Itauma must not do what he did, \u201cItauma needs to treat the fight with Dillian as though it\u2019s gonna be the hardest fight of his life. As long as he goes into the fight without any hype, just truly believing in himself and sticking to the game plan, he should be okay.\u201d<\/p>\n The Hayemaker praised Itauma, but expressed some concern ahead of the fight, \u201cI think he\u2019s got all the ingredients you need to be a world champion, for sure. He\u2019s got everything you need, but there are a few unknowns.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s his stamina like? What\u2019s he like when it gets into rounds seven, eight, nine, and it\u2019s tight, it\u2019s a 50\/50 fight, he\u2019s only won half the rounds because Dillian\u2019s stuck it straight on him?\u201d<\/p>\n Itauma is just 12-0, and has gone from a win over Mike Balogun to headlining a PPV card in Riyadh against a man who has shared the ring with Tyson Fury<\/a>, Joseph Parker<\/a>, and Anthony Joshua<\/a>.<\/p>\n Dillian Whyte was victim to a monumental announcement blunder<\/p>\n In the Grand Arrivals for fight week, Whyte fell victim to a huge blunder upon his entrance, as the announcer, Thomas Treiber, mistakenly called him \u2018The Babysnatcher\u2019 instead of \u2018The Bodysnatcher\u2019.<\/p>\n Whyte had a look of confusion on his face, and later confronted Treiber, who he believed was intentionally messing with him.<\/p>\n Whyte addressed Treiber, asking, \u201cWhat\u2019s with that man? [\u2026] \u2018The Babysnatcher\u2019, that\u2019s crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n Treiber apologized, suggesting he had misread what he had written down, and assured Whyte that for the rest of the week he would certainly be announced as \u2018The Bodysnatcher.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Moses Itauma is facing a big step-up in levels as he eyes a win over Dillian Whyte this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68408,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,19487,18892,16171,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-68407","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-david-haye","10":"tag-dillian-whyte","11":"tag-moses-itauma","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68407","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=68407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Moses](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-2229980633-1024x683.jpg\")
Photo by Richard Pelham\/Getty ImagesDavid Haye warns Moses Itauma not to underestimate Dillian Whyte like he underestimated Carl Thompson<\/p>\n