21-year-old heavyweight speaks on Fury and Joshua fights ahead of title challenge.
Decades ago, the term “horizontal heavyweight” was applied to fighters in the big-man division who happened to hail from the United Kingdom. These were men like Don Cockell, Bruce Woodcock, Tommy Farr, and others who came to win, but would ultimately lose at the highest level.
The people using the term would very quickly forget that Rocky Marciano praised Cockell as one of the toughest men he ever fought and that Farr went the full 15 rounds with Joe Louis.
Either way, time would go on, and the U.K. would start to produce heavyweights such as Henry Cooper and Joe Bugner, but then the era of Lennox Lewis rolled around.
Lewis redefined what a British heavyweight could be, with the likes of Frank Bruno, Herbie Hide, and Henry Akinwande also operating during his time.
Since then, of course, the heavyweight division at the top level is teeming with Britons, a point in history that is still led by two men: Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua.
While both are past their primes, they are expected to face off this November. However, another Briton has now commented on a potential fight with the two of them.
After being asked if he would want to beat them to get them out of the way, Moses Itauma stated to talkSPORT Boxing, “Not really. I think for me to do or suggest that, I think it’s a bit disrespectful. Like, ‘AJ’ [Joshua] obviously isn’t in his prime. Neither’s Tyson Fury, and I think it would be disrespectful for me to say I’d love to fight these guys now.”
The 21-year-old Itauma is scheduled to face Filip Hrgovic for the vacant IBF world championship later this month. Should he win, he will become the youngest heavyweight world champion in the history of British boxing.
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