AUSTRALIAN heavyweight Demsey McKean isn’t convinced Moses Itauma’s promoter Frank Warren has 100% confidence in his fighter.
McKean, 22-1 (14 KOs), spoke to Boxing News five days out from his fight against Itauma, 10-0 (8 KOs), which lands on the Oleksandr Usyk-Tyson Fury 2 undercard in Riyadh.
The 6ft 6ins heavyweight almost went the 12-round distance with world title contender Filip Hrgovic last time out but was stopped with just over a minute remaining. Going into this Saturday’s fight Itauma, widely tipped as a future world heavyweight champion, is a massive odds-on 1/16 favourite to add a second defeat to McKean’s record. But the 9/1 underdog may take some extra confidence after revealing what Itauma’s team put in place before a punch was thrown.
“His team has put in a rematch clause for this fight,” McKean said.
“It’s very interesting that maybe they don’t have this 100% faith in their fighter. It’s not even a world title fight and they’re opting for a rematch clause. So, there’s a little what if. There’s a little not 100% certain that Moses is going to come away with the win.
“Obviously, there’s something going on there with his promoter Frank Warren and maybe they’re not 100% confident.”
Itauma is moving up a level by facing McKean. After 10 fights the 19-year-old has looked the goods as he hopes to break Mike Tyson’s record by becoming the youngest ever world heavyweight champion. And in his last fight the Slovakian-born Brit stopped veteran Mariusz Wach matching what Alexander Povetkin, Jarrell Miller and Martin Bakole managed against the 6ft 7 ½ins Pole.
“There’s a lot of hype around him, a lot of noise behind him,” McKean said of Itauma.
“They’re trying to tab him to beat Mike Tyson’s record. So they can do what they want, that’s what a promotion does, they try to get behind the fighter and promote them. It’s one thing to say something and then another thing to do it.
“It’s easy to look good against the competition that he’s fighting. Mariusz Wach, the guy’s 45 years old, big as a house and taking fights on short notice and not really training hard so he’s expected to do that to Mariusz Wach. I’m a guy that’s coming in with a full camp under my belt, a contender myself, in the prime of my career. I’m actually going to throw punches back unlike all of his opponents.”
