Itauma and the drain of comparison

Article first appeared at BigFightWeekend.com

As an ever larger cohort of fight fans are exposed to the prodigious talents of heavyweight Moses Itauma, the degree of comfort they feel with the media comparing him to the once imperious Mike Tyson will largely be governed by the plasticity of their thinking. Or put more simply, their age.

It isn’t a mirror Itauma sought, but promotionally his career has been benchmarked against Tyson as the narrative that he could become champion at a similar age hung heavy in early press releases. Or would have if people still wrote them.

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August 22, 2025 0

Battle for the Ages. Usyk and Dubois meet again

Article first appeared at AndysBetClub

Saturday, Wembley Stadium. A fight for the undisputed Heavyweight title. Is there a more tantalising prospect in sport?

On the night, the brilliant Ukrainian Oleksander Usyk, 23-0 (14ko) will seek to confirm his status as the King of the division and the master of his generation by defying the hard-charging Brit, Daniel Dubois, 22-2 (21ko).

An intriguing battle of styles is promised; the guile and precision of Usyk versus the brawn and aggression of the revitalised Dubois.

At 38-years-old, Usyk can no longer be regarded as being in his physical prime. However, his efficient style and life-long dedication to the sport coupled with faultless technical prowess are extending his currency and his reign.

For Dubois, once troubled by inertia, nerves and an apparent lack of certainty in how best to deploy his obvious gifts, he has now matured into an exciting, aggressive puncher – trading shots with opponents with the confidence of a man suddenly aware of his own power.

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July 17, 2025 0

Beyond the wires. Dubois faces Hrgovic

As the four pre-eminent heavyweights of the past decade; Fury, Joshua, Wilder and Usyk, jostle in the departure lounge of their mid-thirties, a crop of aspiring heavyweights are eager to emerge as the preeminent contender beyond the long shadow cast by the ageing quartet. Among them, 26-year-old British heavyweight Daniel Dubois.

This weekend, on the latest instalment of the Saudi Arabian propaganda department’s sporting output, wedged beneath veteran Deontay Wilder’s last hurrah with Zilhei Zhang, the apparently awkward Londoner will seek to defy the doubters and overcome Croatia’s Filip Hrgovic. It is a contest with consequence, the winner will become the IBF’s successor to Oleksander Usyk. Yes, the IBF found a way.

Despite his brawn, a solid, if simplistic style and thunderous punching power, Daniel Dubois will once again be challenged to prove he has the mettle to compete for the titles on Saturday. It will require a career best-performance to catch and beat the craftier Hrgovic, 17-0 (14ko) and Dubois may need to demonstrate his ability to overcome adversity in order to do so.

As Dubois sits gulping air between the sentences of his answers to media questions ahead of Saturday, the innocence still lives in his face and the glances to left and right in search of the certainty the inquisitor pursues evokes a peculiar wish in this observer that he can summon that performance and quash the doubts about his resilience.

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May 31, 2024 0

Usyk, the smiling assassin, targets Fury and Joshua

By T. R. Lewison

A Halloween night victory over heavyweight gate keeper Dereck Chisora substantiated Ukranian Oleksandr Usyk’s claim to a place in the division’s top 10. Many observers remain confident Usyk can depose the belt holders above him despite greater than expected problems overcoming the veteran Brit. 2020 has been a frustrating one for Usyk. In his career this far, he has been eager to progress and boasts an appetite for challenges and a willingness to say “Yes”, too few of his contemporaries can match.

The kudos accrued in beating Chazz Witherspoon and Chisora represent a below par annual return for Usyk. Having carved through the entire Cruiserweight division in sixteen bouts to become undisputed king, he has become accustomed to faster progress. Within a complex heavyweight title picture, he may need to develop the virtue of patience in 2021 too. At 33 years old, 34 in January, despite the division traditionally extending a fighter’s prime a little longer, Usyk may prove to be past his own peak when his opportunity finally arrives.

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December 4, 2020 0

MyFightTickets.com Fighter of the Month – July

Boxing can make you cry. Boxing can make you shout. Make you sing. Excite you. Demoralise you. Inspire millions. Save a lonely soul. A single prize-fight can evoke all of these emotions, bring communities together, even unify the divided, if only temporarily. Since the 1950s the pioneers of commercial television realised the potential boxing had to provide enthralling action and, soon after, the draw the men in each corner could become if their stories, their characters were revealed.

It is why, alongside the practicalities of a sport viewed through the monochrome of the early television sets, champions wore white shorts, the challenger black. Just as their contemporary storytellers in Hollywood depicted good guys with white Stetsons and evil landowners in Black ones. Boxing wanted you to care, to ‘pull’ for one guy or the other. And to watch the adverts too of course. Continue reading “MyFightTickets.com Fighter of the Month – July” →

August 3, 2018 1

Usyk the Ukrainian hero needs no titles

“If there’s one thing I know, it’s never to mess with Mother Nature, mother-in-laws and mother freaking Ukrainians.”

Skinny Pete, The Italian Job, 2003

Sport and politics are not meant to trespass on to each other’s figurative lawns. Far too frequently, they do. From the cricket fields of apartheid South Africa in the 1970s, the American boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics through to the present day – a swirl of state sponsored doping, kneeling line backers and the awarding of football World Cups on the basis of stuffed manila envelopes rather than full stadiums. The politicising of sport is neither a new nor uncommon phenomenon. They are perennially entwined.

Boxing is littered with examples, from the persecution of Jack Johnson a century ago to the symbolism of Joe Louis’ rematch with Germany’s Max Schmeling in 1938, it is a rich and luminous seam. Fighters possess power in their actions and their opinions that can reach far beyond the roped square in which they ply their trade and politicians are always eager to manipulate the image or popularism of their pugilistic contemporaries. Continue reading “Usyk the Ukrainian hero needs no titles” →