Moses Itauma has people wondering if he will break Mike Tyson’s record to become the youngest heavyweight world champion. Edge contender Itauma (11-0, 9 KOs) recently turned 20 on December 28, meaning he has four months to break Tyson’s record.
Itauma defeated 34-year-old Dempsey McKean (22-2, 14 KOs) in the second round on the undercard of Tyson Fury vs. Stopped Oleksandr Usyk 2 in Riyadh. The event was shown on DAZN PPV.
Chase Tyson
Tyson was 20 years and four months old when he knocked out WBC heavyweight champion Trevor Berbick in the second round on November 22, 1986. It was ‘Iron’ Mike’s 28th professional fight, and he faced better opposition than Itauma. That’s one big difference.
The only semi-notable opponents Itauma has faced are 45-year-old Mariuz Wach and Demsey McKean. Wach had lost eight of his previous 12 fights before his match against Itauma. McKean was inactive for 16 months and was coming off a 12-hour round knockout loss to Filip Hrgovic.
Itauma was matched VERY carefully, as was his brother, Karol Itauma, before finally getting knocked out when matched against a decent opponent.
Promoter Frank Warren said he wants Itauma to win a share of one of the heavyweight titles in 2025. He will either go after WBA’s ‘ordinary’ champion Kubrat Pulev or an interim belt. Joseph Parker has the WBO interim title. However, Warren is unlikely to put Itauma with him this year due to the high probability that he will lose.
Even the 43-year-old Pulev may be too much for Itauma because the Bulgarian still has very impressive technical skills that cannot be prepared for in one camp.
The brother’s shadow
Itauma is a good basic slugger, but he has no experience against anything remotely resembling a first-tier fighter. If he is thrown with a shark-like Parker or Oleksandr Usyk, he will be boxed out and likely eliminated, just as his brother Karol Itauma was when he was beaten in 2023 by 2008 Olympian Ezequiel Maderna.
Before that fight, everyone was raving about Karol, but he was completely out of his depth when he was put in with Maderna. These days you never hear from Karol anymore. The same could happen to Moses Itauma if he is put in with a good heavyweight.
“It’s a fair analogy,” promoter Frank Warren said BoxNation when the interviewer told that he had not seen someone like Moses Itauma since Mike Tyson started his career. “I fancied him to win the fight (Demsey McKean) but I thought he was going to get a few rounds like in the last fight (45-year-old Mariusz Wach).
“The power is unbelievable, and how relaxed he is when he throws his punches. He has a good jab, has a good boxing brain, and he did a great job (knockout McKean in round one). Although the fights didn’t last as long, he seemed more composed out of all of them.
“He has a very good head on his shoulders and a great team around him. He can fight. There is no doubt about it. He could literally do whatever he wanted,” Warren said when asked what Moses Itauma could do in 2025.
Let’s put things into perspective a bit. McKean had been out of the ring for 16 months and was coming off a knockout loss to Hrgovic. Before that, McKean had never beaten anyone of note during his 10-year career. All of his wins have come against non-world class opponents.
“No, I don’t want to throw him, especially with a young fighter, that they throw in the deep end. I believe whoever he fights, whoever it is, and the level they are at, he gives them a massive problem,” Warren said.
“I want to see him win a version of the (heavyweight) title, and I want to see a big domestic blowout down the road, maybe between Daniel (Dubois) and him and whoever is standing. Yes, all those guys. All those battles are there to be fought. It’s so exciting.
“The combinations of different fights that can be made. It’s just bloody brilliant,” Warren said of possible fights that could be made involving Itauma.
Will Moses Itauma be a World Champion by the end of 2025? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/oN0zasEkIj
— DAZN Boxing (@DAZNBoxing) January 3, 2025
