Will Itauma be able to beat Mike Tyson’s record?

Moses Itauma has people wondering if he will break Mike Tyson’s record of becoming the youngest world heavyweight champion. Fringe contender Itauma (11-0, 9 KOs) recently turned 20 on December 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 Tyson Fury vs. Oleksandr 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. That was ‘Iron’ Mike’s 28th professional fight, and he has faced better opponents than Itauma. That’s a big difference.

The only semi-notable opponents Itauma has faced are 45-year-old Mariuz Wach and Demsey McKean. Prior to his 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-round knockout loss to Filip Hrgovic.

Itauma has been pitted VERY carefully, as has his brother, Karol Itauma, before he was finally knocked out when pitted against a decent opponent.

Promoter Frank Warren said he wants Itauma to win a share of one of the heavyweight titles in 2025. Or he will go after the ‘regular’ WBA champion. Kubrat Pulev or a temporary belt. joseph parker He holds the interim title of the WBO. However, Warren is unlikely to put Itauma with him this year due to the high probability that he will lose.

Even Pulev, 43, could be too much for Itauma because the Bulgarian still has impressive technical skills that cannot be prepared for on a single pitch.

brother’s shadow

Itauma is a good basic slugger, but he has no experience against anything remotely resembling a top-tier grappler. If he gets thrown in with a shark-like Parker or Oleksandr Usyk, he will be outmatched and likely knocked out, just as his brother, Karol Itauma, was when he was pitted against 2008 Olympian Ezequiel Maderna in 2023.

Before that fight, everyone was excited about Karol, but he was completely out of their depth when he faced Maderna. Nowadays you no longer hear about Karol. The same could happen to Moses Itauma if he is assigned a good heavyweight.

“That’s a fair analogy,” promoter Frank Warren told CajaNation when the interviewer told him that he hadn’t seen anyone like Moses Itauma since Mike Tyson started his career. “I figured I would win the fight (Demsey McKean), but I thought I was going to get a few rounds like in the previous fight (Mariusz Wach, 45).

“The power is incredible and how relaxed he is when throwing his punches. He’s got a great jab, a good boxing brain and he did a great job (knocking out McKean in the first round). Although the fights didn’t last that long, he seemed the most composed of them all.

“He has a very good head on his shoulders and a great team around him. He can fight. There is no doubt about that. I could literally do whatever I wanted,” Warren said when asked what Moses Itauma can do in 2025.

Let’s put things into perspective a little. 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 victories have come against opponents who are not world class.

“No, I don’t want to throw it, especially with a young fighter, throwing him in the deep end. “I think whoever he fights, whoever he is and whatever level he is at, he gives 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 domestic fight in the future, maybe between Daniel (Dubois) and him and whoever is standing. Yeah, all those guys. All those fights are there to be made. It’s very exciting.

“The combinations of different fights that can be done. “He’s just brilliant,” Warren said of possible fights that could be made involving Itauma.

Will Moses Itauma be World Champion at the end of 2025? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/oN0zasEkIj

– DAZN Boxing (@DAZNBoxing) January 3, 2025