Tony Bellew naming Moses Itauma as Daniel Dubois‘s only true threat leans heavily on raw potential while ignoring what just happened in the ring. Filip Hrgovic stopped Itauma in nine rounds, yet Bellew expects the youngster to topple a champion who dismantled Hrgovic with ease.
Bellew backed Dubois to run through the heavyweight elite, carving out just one exception.
“The only person I think who’s going to do him [Dubois] is Moses,” said Bellew to Fight Your Corner.
That call glides right past the roughest question of the fight. What happens when Itauma’s hand speed runs out of clean targets, and Dubois keeps walking him down?
Dubois has felt the sting of having his limitations put on display. Joe Joyce wore him down with a relentless jab back in 2020, while Oleksandr Usyk repeatedly punished his struggles against fleet-footed southpaws. Those setbacks explain Bellew’s intrigue, but they also highlight the massive gap between presenting a tricky look and holding that form through deep water.
Itauma brings a southpaw look, but he lacks Usyk’s ring IQ, engine, or veteran poise. Against Hrgovic, talent alone failed to carry him past round nine. Dubois stopped that very same opponent in 2024. While triangle theory never settles a fight, those results carry far more weight than a casual nod to speed.
The real tactical riddle sits with Itauma’s movement. He must slip Dubois’s heavy artillery without draining his gas tank along the ropes. Sharp bursts can disrupt Dubois early, but surviving an advancing sledgehammer round after round demands constant discipline. Circling away eats up energy, especially if the punches coming back fail to push the champion onto his back foot.
Dubois wiping out Fabio Wardley doesn’t mean he has solved every stylistic puzzle. At the same time, Itauma’s bright future doesn’t wipe away the tough flaws Hrgovic exposed.
Bellew can back his hunch, but labeling Itauma the division’s lone danger grants huge credit to a prospect fresh off a stoppage loss. Itauma still has to prove he fixed those breakdowns before anyone crowns him the man to beat Dubois.
