{"id":687679,"date":"2026-07-12T13:28:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T13:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/687679\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T13:28:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T13:28:10","slug":"johnny-nelson-says-moses-itauma-should-stay-away-from-one-heavyweight-champion-i-wouldnt-go-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/687679\/","title":{"rendered":"Johnny Nelson says Moses Itauma should stay away from one heavyweight champion: &#8220;I wouldn&#8217;t go there&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/boxer\/moses-itauma-2\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Moses Itauma<\/a> is being touted for a long reign atop the heavyweight division, but former WBO cruiserweight world champion, Johnny Nelson, believes that there is one divisional rival that the youngster should avoid facing.<\/p>\n<p>Itauma has stopped 12 of his 14 opponents to date, and is yet to fight beyond the sixth round during his professional career. However, the Kent-based youngster is on the verge of a shot at the heavyweight throne, with an August clash with Filip Hrgovic seemingly the only obstacle to his world title bid.<\/p>\n<p>The 21-year-old is currently the WBO mandatory challenger and has also been <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/news\/itauma-ordered-fight-for-usyk-old-belt\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ordered for a fight with Frank Sanchez for the vacant IBF heavyweight world title<\/a>, following Oleksandr Usyk\u2019s vacation of the belt.<\/p>\n<p>Although, it is still unknown whether Itauma will pursue Sanchez or instead decided to challenge newly crowned WBA heavyweight ruler, Murat Gassiev, who was recently elevated to full world champion and uccessfully <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/murat-gassiev-peter-kadiru-wba-heavyweight-f152d2d6001ba271f00604ba660e4ed4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">defended it for the first time after stopping late substitute opponent, Peter Kadiru, in round six<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@talksport\/video\/7661012119432826134?is_from_webapp=1&amp;sender_device=pc\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">talkSPORT<\/a>, Nelson declared that Itauma should opt for the IBF route, believing that Gassiev could be a difficult proposition for the relatively inexperienced Briton and that he should instead agree to take on Cuba\u2019s Sanchez.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGassiev is a good fighter, he boxed Usyk and he caused him problems. He is a clever guy, so I wouldn\u2019t go there yet for Moses.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[I would rather he fight Frank] Sanchez.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/boxing\/articles\/cn8q67l4dgdo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Itauma-Hrgovic takes place on Saturday, August 29, at the O2 Arena<\/a>, as Itauma headlines in London for the first time, seeking yet another performance that gets the world of boxing talking of his potential once again.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>                                            <script async src=\"\/\/www.tiktok.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Moses Itauma is being touted for a long reign atop the heavyweight division, but former WBO cruiserweight world&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":687680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-687679","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\/687679","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=687679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/687680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=687679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=687679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=687679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}