Itauma has shown maturity beyond his years since winning in just 23 seconds on his professional debut in 2023 – and has continued to excel with every step up.<\/p>\n
Heavyweight rivals Joseph Parker, Derek Chisora and Lawrence Okolie were among those watching at ringside as the rising star put on another statement performance.<\/p>\n
The Slovakia-born fighter walked first to the ring, despite being the A-side, but was made to wait for more than three minutes – longer than the fight lasted – by Whyte, who delayed his entrance.<\/p>\n
After throwing a few early feints to get a read on his opponent, Itauma started to unload and quickly found the range for his heavy hands.<\/p>\n
Whyte was clearly feeling the power and back on the ropes as Itauma picked his shots carefully.<\/p>\n
A right hook to the temple proved the telling blow and, despite bravely getting back to his feet, Whyte was deemed not fit to continue.<\/p>\n
“How he did it, his temperament, control and composure – he fights better than guys at their peak and he is 20 years of age,” Queensberry’s Frank Warren, who promotes Itauma, told BBC Radio 5 Live.<\/p>\n
“He did a job on somebody who has been at the best levels.”<\/p>\n
Despite getting into the shape of his career – weighing the lightest for 10 years – Whyte could not cut it with Itauma and questions linger over his future.<\/p>\n
Itauma’s dreams of becoming the youngest heavyweight champion in history ended in May, but this victory puts him firmly on track for a title shot in boxing’s glamour division in the next 12 months.<\/p>\n
With Tyson Fury in retirement, Anthony Joshua in the twilight of his career and Daniel Dubois losing his IBF title to Usyk last month, Itauma once again demonstrated he is the great British heavyweight hope in waiting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Itauma has shown maturity beyond his years since winning in just 23 seconds on his professional debut in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-72203","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72203","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=72203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}