Moses Itauma believes Fabio Wardley’s first WBO heavyweight world title defence against Daniel Dubois lasts no more than six rounds.
Wardley and Dubois both step through the ropes tonight in Manchester with a 95% knockout-to-win ratio, though most in the boxing world predict one of those records will become more impressive, with few backing this one to need the judges at ringside.
That includes Itauma, who is close to being announced as the mandatory challenger for the winner. The 21-year-old Brit expects to have a world title shot this year, and whether that comes for the WBO may rest on who is victorious. He shares the same trainer as Wardley, but if Dubois wins, Itauma would not hesitate to take that challenge.
Having seen Wardley up close in the gym, however, Itauma told BBC Sport he is confident his stablemate retains the belt before the fight enters its second half.
“I’ll probably go for Fabio Wardley quite early – rounds four to six.”
14 of Wardley’s 19 knockouts have come inside the first four rounds, though the majority of those were when he was in the early stages of his career against lower-level opposition. Against Justis Huni and Joseph Parker in his last two outings, the Ipswich champ was taken late, stopping Huni in the 10th and Parker in the 11th.
The biggest question for most, and what makes this heavyweight clash so intriguing, is whether or not Wardley can take the sort of punches Huni and Parker were landing against a bona fide knockout artist in Dubois, who has 16 stoppages in the first four rounds.
