Moses Itauma has people wondering if he will break Mike Tyson’s record to become the youngest heavyweight champion of the world. Middleweight Itauma (11-0, 9 KOs) recently turned 20 on Dec. 28, meaning he has four months to break Tyson’s record.
Itauma stopped 34-year-old Dempsey McKean (22-2, 14 KOs) in the second round on the undercard of Tyson Fury vs. Alexander Usyk 2 in Riyadh. The event was shown on DAZN PPV.
Chasing 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 faces better opposition than Itauma. That’s one big difference.
The only semi-notable opponents Itauma has faced are 45-year-old Mariuz Vach and Demsey McKean. Before the match against Itauma, Wach had lost eight of his previous 12 fights. McKean had been inactive for 16 months and was coming off a 12-hour knockout loss to Filip Hrgovic.
Itauma was matched VERY carefully, just like his brother, Karol Itauma, before he was eventually knocked out when matched against a decent opponent.
Promoter Frank Warren has said he wants Itauma to win a share of one of the heavyweight titles in 2025. He will either go after the ‘regular’ WBA champion Kubrat Pulev or temporary belt. Joseph Parker bears the temporary title of VBO. However, Warren is unlikely to put Itauma with him this year due to the high probability of him losing.
Even the 43-year-old Pulev could be too much for Itauma as the Bulgarian still has very impressive technical skills that cannot be prepared for in one camp.
Brother’s shadow
Itauma is a good basic player, but has no experience fighting anything resembling a level 1 fighter. If he’s thrown in with the shark-like Parker or Alexander Usyk, he’ll be outboxed and likely knocked out, just like his brother Karol Itauma was when he took on 2008 Olympian Ezekiel Maderna in 2023.
Everyone was raving about Carroll before that fight, but he was completely out of his mind when he was put in with Maderno. Today Karol is never heard from again. The same could happen to Moses Itauma if he plays with a good heavyweight.
“It’s a fair analogy,” said promoter Frank Warren BoxNation when an interviewer said he hadn’t seen anyone like Moses Itauma since Mike Tyson first started his career. “I thought he was going to win the fight (Demsey McKean), but I thought he was going to get a few rounds like the last fight (45-year-old Mariusz Wach).
“The power is unbelievable, and how relaxed he is when he’s throwing punches.” He’s got a great jab, he’s got a good boxing brain, and he got the job done in a big way (knocked out McKean in the first round). Although the fights didn’t last that long, he seemed more composed than 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 that. He could literally do whatever he wanted to do,” Warren said when asked what Moses Itauma can 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. Prior to 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 it away, especially with a young fighter, throwing them in the deep end.” “I believe whoever he’s fighting, whoever he is, and whatever level they’re at, he’s going to give them a big problem,” Warren said.
“I want to see him win a version of the (heavyweight) title and I want to see a big fight in the country down the road, maybe between Daniel (Dubo) and him and whoever is standing. Yeah, all those guys. All those fights are there to be fought. It’s so exciting.
“Combinations of different fights that can be made.” It’s pretty damn awesome,” Warren said of potential fights with Itauma.
Will Moses Itauma be world champion by the end of 2025? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/oN0zasEkIj
— DAZN boxing (@DAZNBoking) January 3, 2025