Moses Itauma ordered to face heavyweight champion after WBA clarify rankings error

Moses Itauma‘s possible career path has become a lot clearer after he was officially named as the mandatory challenger for a reigning world heavyweight champion.

Itauma is viewed as being the future of the heavyweight division, with the 21-year-old having won all 14 of his professional fights to date, 12 of them coming by knockout.

He has claimed wins over the likes of Dillian Whyte, Mariusz Wach and Demsey McKean, and last time out became the first man to stop former Whyte and Anthony Joshua foe Jermaine Franklin when he earned a fifth round TKO victory.

Itauma is set for his toughest test so far later this month when he takes on Filip Hrgovic at The O2 Arena on August 29, and with a win there, the youngster could now head straight into a world title shot.

That is after the WBA confirmed that Itauma is the mandatory for Murat Gassiev, correcting an earlier mistake where Jarrell Miller was wrongly listed as mandatory.

“The World Boxing Association (WBA) Championships Committee wishes to clarify an inadvertent error in the publication of the July heavyweight rankings, which incorrectly listed Jarrell Miller as the division’s official mandatory challenger.

“The heavyweight division has one official mandatory challenger: Moses Itauma, who currently holds the No. 1 spot in the rankings and has been awaiting his world title opportunity for several months.

“While Miller returned to the ring on April 24 and earned a unanimous decision victory over Lenier Peró in Las Vegas, it is important to clarify that the bout was not a final eliminator. As such, that victory did not make him the WBA’s official mandatory challenger.”

Gassiev became WBA Regular champion in December with a knockout win over Kubrat Pulev, and after Oleksandr Usyk vacated his unified world heavyweight titles earlier this summer, Gassiev was subsequently elevated to full champion.

It means Itauma now has another avenue for a world title shot, having already been ordered to negotiate with Frank Sanchez for a fight for the vacant IBF heavyweight title.