21-year-old is looking to become Britain’s youngest heavyweight world champion.
When Oleksandr Usyk recently vacated his unified heavyweight world championship, the land of boxing’s big men truly opened up, and everyone ranked highly enough was rewarded as a result.
WBC interim champion Agit Kabayel was considered the leading threat to Usyk in the division. Upon the Ukrainian giving up his belts, Kabayel became the new WBC champion.
Murat Gassiev was the WBA (Regular) champion, but was promoted to the full WBA titlist, becoming the fourth boxer in history to be champion at both cruiserweight and heavyweight.
The WBO title, on the other hand, was already accounted for, being held by Daniel Dubois, who recently won it by beating then-beltholder Fabio Wardley.
This only left the IBF title, the belt of the organisation that generally doesn’t just upgrade fighters to world champion. This situation was no different.
The IBF ordered Cuban contender Frank Sanchez (who recently knocked out America’s Richard Torrez Jr.) to face Britain’s unbeaten Moses Itauma for their vacant championship.
The only thing was that Itauma was officially scheduled to face Croatia’s Filip Hrgovic, which was actually a step-up fight for the Briton. So, if Itauma vs. Sanchez were to happen, the former would have to get past the biggest test of his career to step into an even bigger test.
Now, however, that issue has been resolved. Frank Warren of Queensberry Promotions (Itauma’s promoter) today revealed that Sanchez had accepted step-aside money to allow the vacant IBF title to be on the line for Itauma-Hrgovic.
This means that the 21-year-old Itauma will become the youngest British heavyweight champion in history should he defeat Hrgovic, and he will also become the youngest active world champion in the sport.
If he does, he is obligated to make his first defence against Sanchez.
It’s OFFICIAL 👑
World Heavyweight honours on the line at a historic night at the O2 when Moses Itauma takes on Filip Hrgovic 🥊 #MosesHrgovic | Aug 29 | The O2, London | Live on @DAZNBoxing pic.twitter.com/j2bs8Gy8IC
— Queensberry Promotions (@Queensberry) August 4, 2026
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