{"id":685994,"date":"2026-07-11T12:24:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T12:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/685994\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T12:24:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T12:24:07","slug":"tony-bellew-says-moses-itauma-should-avoid-one-heavyweight-at-all-costs-dont-go-near-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/685994\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Bellew says Moses Itauma should avoid one heavyweight at all costs: “Don’t go near him”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tony Bellew<\/a> has advised Moses Itauma<\/a> against facing an opponent who, based on his superior experience, could become the first man to drag him into deep waters.<\/p>\n

The heavyweight prodigy already has his hands full, of course, as he will face seasoned veteran Filip Hrgovic<\/a> at London\u2019s O2 Arena on August 29.<\/p>\n

On paper, this is undoubtedly his toughest test thus far, with Hrgovic\u2019s only professional defeat having come via an eighth-round stoppage against Daniel Dubois<\/a> in June 2024.<\/p>\n

Itauma, on the other hand, has never made it past six rounds, but was close to doing so before dispatching Jermaine Franklin with a fifth-round finish<\/a> in March.<\/p>\n

Having cemented himself as a formidable knockout artist, the 21-year-old is now ranked No.1 with both the WBO and WBA, seemingly closing in on a major opportunity.<\/p>\n

According to former world champion Bellew, though, the talented southpaw should steer well clear of Oleksandr Usyk<\/a>, who relinquished his WBC, IBF and WBA belts last month.<\/p>\n

Even at the age of 39, and after having to grind out a 11th-round stoppage against Rico Verhoeven<\/a> in May, the Ukrainian is still the lineal heavyweight champion and, more generally, a generational great.<\/p>\n

For this reason, Bellew has told Fight Your Corner<\/a> that, even at this stage in their careers, Itauma is not ready for an elite competitor like Usyk.<\/p>\n

\u201cMoses [shouldn\u2019t] go near him at the minute. I think that it would be absolutely insane to throw Moses Itauma into [an] Usyk [fight] after not going past six [rounds] yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cWould you throw a fighter like that in with someone like [Usyk]? [Usyk\u2019s] game plan would be, \u2018I have only got to see past six rounds with you, kid. I am going to take you to places that you have never been\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

While a matchup between Usyk and Itauma has been widely discussed, it does appear that the two southpaws will ultimately go their separate ways.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tony Bellew has advised Moses Itauma against facing an opponent who, based on his superior experience, could become…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":685995,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-685994","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\/685994","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=685994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/685995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=685994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=685994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=685994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}