Moses Itauma and Ben Davison have both come under fire following Itauma’s defeat to Filip Hrgovic on Saturday, and fan-favourite heavyweight veteran Derek Chisora has had his say on Davison as a trainer.
Davison aided Tyson Fury’s return to the sport after a two-and-a-half year hiatus, cornering Fury for a total of five contests, including a famous draw in his initial encounter with Deontay Wilder back in 2018.
When Fury wanted to team up with SugarHill Steward and adopt the ‘Kronk’ style of fighting, Davison chose not to work in a joint set-up and left the team, since going on to establish himself as a top trainer in the UK; working with the likes of Josh Taylor, Leigh Wood, Fabio Wardley and Anthony Joshua.
‘AJ’ left Davison following a devastating defeat to Daniel Dubois, but Davison has remained present on the heavyweight scene through Wardley and 21-year-old phenomenon Itauma, who had the opportunity to become the second-youngest heavyweight world champion of all time last month.
Despite a dominant start, Itauma began to fade and was eventually defeated by a combination of Hrgovic’s granite and calculated attack, halted by the Croatian in round nine whilst on unsteady and exhausted legs.
On the ‘Fight Your Corner’ podcast, in partnership with Midnite, Chisora questioned the ability of the much-hyped Itauma, before gunning for Davison and stating that his ‘bubble’ of fighters has ‘burst’ – a run which he believes began with Pat McCormack’s defeat to Conah Walker last December.
“Moses is OK, when you box taxi-drivers, but when you’re boxing a real guy who was coming to win, we are both on the same level. So, you’re not good. Good is, you get in there and you do your thing and ‘OK, I can’t knock him out, so what do I do? Go on my jab’. You can’t cheat boxing, you have to do everything in boxing the right way.
“His trainer is s**t. I told him this and I will tell you this – in Monaco, his fighter lost [Pat McCormack] and I said to him ‘that bubble is going to blow up now’. Fabio Wardley – lost. TKV [Jeamie Tshikeva], [Anthony] Joshua – he [Ben Davison] is s**t.”
As Chisora states, 2026 has been a torrid year for Davison as far as heavyweights are concerned, with Wardley losing his WBO world title to Dubois, Tshikeva losing his British title to Richard Riakporhe and now Itauma missing his chance to become world champion against Hrgovic.
Davison has the chance to avenge one of those defeats next month though, as Wardley rematches Dubois in a quest to become a two-time heavyweight world champion on Saturday, October 17.
