Moses Itauma Names Daniel Dubois the Heavyweight He'd Want on His Side

Moses Itauma is 14-0 with 12 knockouts and just 21 years old, and by most reasonable measures he's the scariest young heavyweight on the planet. He doesn't see it that way. Asked directly whether he or top-10 rival Filip Hrgovic was boxing's most dangerous big man, Itauma pointed somewhere else entirely — at Daniel Dubois, the 28-year-old WBO champion sitting on a 23-3 record with 22 knockouts.

Speaking to DAZN, Itauma framed it in the bluntest terms available: Dubois is the guy you don't want to run into in a dark alley. He went further, saying that if you dropped him into a two-on-two brawl, Dubois is the man he'd want beside him. He was careful to add that he'd still fight Dubois in a heartbeat — he just wants him as a teammate first.

The Case for Itauma's Own Danger

The modesty is nice, but the résumé argues against it. In March, Itauma dropped and stopped Jermaine Franklin in the fifth round — Franklin being one of those grind-it-out heavyweights who usually eats punishment for a living rather than hitting the canvas. That performance pushed Itauma to #6 in the division and turned a prospect into a genuine contender at breakneck speed.

Hrgovic is the next test, and it's a real one. The two meet on August 29 at London's O2 Arena, and Hrgovic — a consensus top-10 heavyweight — is expected to make Itauma work harder than anyone has so far. Win convincingly and a world title shot stops being a question of if and becomes a question of when.

Why the Dubois Comparison Matters

Dubois has done the thing Itauma hasn't yet: he's held straps. 'Dynamite' claimed the WBO title by finishing Fabio Wardley in the 11th round back in May, and before that he owned the IBF belt, defending it with a fifth-round stoppage of Anthony Joshua. The one blemish on that stretch was a fifth-round loss to Oleksandr Usyk in July 2025 — the ceiling of the division reminding everyone where it sits.

The interesting part is the trajectory. Itauma says Queensberry's Frank Warren is already sketching out an undisputed showdown between the two Brits, with Dubois expected to run back the Wardley fight next. So the teammate talk is really just polite table-setting. If both men keep winning, the alley Itauma described stops being hypothetical — and only one of them walks out of it with the belts.