Moses Itauma says he would take a fight with Deontay Wilder if the former WBC champion beats Derek Chisora, but he is not pretending the gamble is simple. The 21-year-old heavyweight told Seconds Out ahead of Wilder’s recent fight that he would be willing to meet him, while making clear he sees the calculation as one of risk and reward.
Itauma put it plainly: if Wilder wins, he is open to it. If Wilder loses, he sees little to gain from chasing the bout, given what he described as a bad loss to Zhang. He added that Wilder is a legend of the sport, but said a fighter has to weigh up what can be gained from beating him against what can be lost by losing to him.
The comments land with extra force because Itauma is no ordinary prospect. He has won all 14 of his fights, 12 of them by knockout, and nine of those wins have come inside the first two rounds. He also stopped Dillian Whyte in the first round and became the first man to stop Jermaine Franklin inside five rounds, a notable feat against a boxer who had gone the distance with both Whyte and Anthony Joshua on previous UK visits.
That run has made Itauma one of the division’s most in-form and hotly tipped fighters, which is why any talk of Wilder matters even without a world title on the line. Wilder, a former WBC champion, remains a major name, and a possible Itauma-Wilder meeting would carry profile even if it would not settle a championship.
The tension is in the timing. Itauma is looking at a name that still carries real weight, but also at a fighter whose recent form changed the terms of any discussion after the Zhang defeat. Wilder’s recent 12-round decision win added another wrinkle, yet the question around Itauma is not whether he respects the name. It is whether the reward is worth the risk right now. For a 21-year-old on this kind of run, that is not a small calculation.