By Declan Taylor
MOSES ITAUMA wants an all-British showdown with Joe Joyce in Saudi.
The pair both boxed on the o2 Arena card on July 27 but had differing fortunes on the night.
Joyce was dropped en route to a unanimous decision defeat after 10 brutal rounds with Dereck Chisora in the main event.
But Itauma barely broke a sweat as he ruthlessly despatched the usually-durable Mariusz Wach inside two rounds.
It is understood that Itauma might not box again now until an appearance on the undisputed world heavyweight rematch show topped by Oleksandr Usyk’s rematch with Tyson Fury in Saudi Arabia on December 21.
And the 19-year-old wants to mark the occasion by securing a big name opponent and believes Joyce fits the bill.
He said: “Me and my brother were thinking Joe Joyce would be a good fight.”
“I feel like it’d be a bit of a Mariusz Wach situation, where people think he’s got a chin, he’s gonna take me somewhere. That could be a good fight for me – Joe Joyce could be a good fight for me.
“I’d take any fight, really. I’m screaming for loads of people’s names, but none of them really make sense. ‘Who do you want to go for?’ ‘Who’s got the titles.’ Solomon Dacres; Fabio Wardley; the Ukrainian guy that has the European title. They’re the kind of people that I want to be fighting, but at the same time, for me to fight them, it doesn’t make sense.”
Itauma’s manager Francis Warren has been working overtime in a bid to secure an established heavyweight for Itauma to fight but has often hit a brick wall in negotiations.
“I understand why they don’t want to fight me,” Itauma said. “If I was in their shoes, I wouldn’t take the fight with me either. Why would I? It’s a losing situation. If I win, it’s, ‘He’s meant to do that – he’s a kid’. If you lose, you can’t really come back from that because you got beat by a kid.
“The Wach fight was easier than I expected. I trained hard for that fight. At the beginning I thought this was going to be a fight I’d have to overcome; showcase something else, not just power. It didn’t get to that point. It was a little bit disappointing.”