Heavyweight Moses Itauma will meet Dillian Whyte on August 16 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Ring Magazine announced via social media Thursday.
The card, which will also feature Nick Ball’s defense of his featherweight title against Sam Goodman in the co-main event, is a Riyadh Season event that will run in conjunction with the 2025 Esports World Cup.
The main-event bout represents a significant step up for Itauma (12-0, 10 KOs), an emerging presence on the heavyweight scene. Although he has already appeared on several prominent cards in Riyadh, as well as fights at London’s O2 Arena and York Hall, this event marks Itauma’s first as a headliner and will come against the most accomplished opponent the 20-year-old Slovakian-British slugger has faced yet.
Whyte, 31-3 (21 KOs), might be precisely the right man at the right time to test Itauma. At 37, Whyte is indisputably shopworn and in his career twilight, but his recent activity suggests he may be the sort of beatable-but-dangerous gatekeeper called for at this stage in Itauma’s development. Whyte was characterized as washed by some after his 2022 stoppage at the hands of Tyson Fury, but he has won all three of his fights since – a majority decision over Jermaine Franklin Jnr and stoppages of Christian Hammer and Ebenezer Tetteh.
Itauma, who is considered by many to be the future of the division, would take an important step in that direction by putting Whyte – a one-time heavyweight challenger – in the immediate past. He has stopped his past eight opponents, including Mariusz Wach, Demsey McKean and, most recently, Mike Balogun last month.
Also on the card will be Ireland’s Anthony Cacace against Raymond Ford, of Camden, New Jersey, in a junior lightweight bout; Croatia’s Filip Hrgovic against London’s David Adeleye at heavyweight; and Japanese junior lightweight Hayato Tsutaumi facing Quais Ashfaq.