David Haye believes Dillian Whyte can defeat Moses Itauma on Saturday night because of his experience. However, he doesn’t know if Dillian, 37, still has enough left in him at his age to beat the 20-year-old Queensberry-promoted Itauma (12-0, 10 Kos).
Whyte’s Age and Recent Form
Itauma vs. Whyte will headline this Saturday, August 16th, on DAZN PPV at the ANB Arena in Riyadh. Moses is being fast-tracked to the top by his promoters, who are selecting the opposition carefully. They feel he’ll be ready to challenge Oleksandr Usyk for his undisputed heavyweight champion if he defeats Whyte (31-3, 21 KOs) and looks good in doing so.
“100% if Dillian Whyte has paid the price in training, if he’s taken it seriously, which by all accounts, he has,’ said David Haye to BoxNation when asked if Dillian Whyte can defeat Moses Itauma. “He doesn’t want to go out and be knocked out by a 21-year-old novice [correction: 20-year-old]. That’s not in the script for him. He’s not believing that.
“He’s been there, seen it, done it, and mixed it with the best in sparring and in championship fights,” said Haye about Whyte. “He’s fought the very best and always given a good account of himself. He has the ability to win this fight because he’s so experienced.”
Whyte has the ability, but he’s going to need to be able to take the power of Itauma. If it starts getting bad for him, will Dillian want to stick it out to try and take Moses into the second half of the fight? If Whyte believes that he can keep getting big paydays from Turki Alalshikh if he wins, he’ll be willing to endure the pain to take Itauma to the second half, test his chin, and prove that he’s just a fake hype job created by his management to bleed the British public of their money.
“Does he still have that magic? I haven’t seen it in his last two fights [against Ebenezer Tetteh and Christian Hammer],” said Haye about Whyte. “Physically, he looked in a different place in those last two fights, and when people start judging him on his worst performances, you can miscalculate.”
The Millionaire Fighter’s Motivation
Whyte looked good against Christian Hammer, but terrible against Tetteh and Jermaine Franklin. Part of the problem is the money he’s made. Dillian is now a millionaire, and he doesn’t have the same hunger that he once did when he was fighting from paycheck to paycheck earlier in his career before he became wealthy.
“If this fight were five or six years ago, it wouldn’t have happened, but it’s happening now. Dillian’s thinking, ‘Everyone is writing me off. I’m getting a crazy payday,” said Haye. “‘I’m out at Riyadh Season and I’m fighting a guy [Itauma] that’s had 12 fights’ against a very low level compared to Dillian. So, he’s going to be swimming in uncharted waters in something he hasn’t done yet under the lights.”
Of course, this fight wouldn’t have happened five or six years ago. If Whyte were still fighting at the level he showed against Lucas Browne in 2018, Queensberry wouldn’t let Itauma anywhere near him. They’re not putting Itauma in with killers like Agit Kabayel, Lenier Pero, Danier Pero, Richard Torrez Jr, Joseph Parker, Daniel Dubois, or even Zhilie Zhang. He could get found out, and that would stop the money flow from the spigot. Right now, Itauma is a license to print money due to his being in with Turki Alalshikh, like some other British fighters
“He may have done it in sparring, but sparring and competition in those little 10-oz gloves takes one mistake and you’re sitting on the seat of your pants. He hasn’t been in that situation yet, and we don’t know what his punch resistance is like because he’s so skillful that he’s not given his opponents the chance to test his chin,” said Haye about Moses Itauma.
The thing is, Itauma has not only not faced good opposition during his professional career, but also as an amateur. Whether it’s been something done on purpose or not, the reality is, Itauma has been selectively matched all along. The closest he got against stiff competition was when he fought a big teenager from Greece, Stylianos Roulias, in 2022.
He was under pressure the entire fight and looked nervous, running around the ring. Roulias (10-8) was far from a great fighter. But he put Itauma under pressure, took his shots, and chased him like a dog chasing a cat. Itauma did not look happy in that fight.
