WORLD BEAT
Moses Itauma on the undercard of the Ring Magazine heavyweight championship rematch between Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on December 21. The tall and rangy McKean (22-1, 14 KOs), a southpaw, will be hoping to get back in the winner’s circle following his 12th-round stoppage loss to Filip Hrgovic in August last year. For Itauma (10-0, 8 KOs), also a lefty, he will be looking to show that his natural talent will ascend with him as he faces increasingly tougher opposition. If McKean is triumphant, he would be a welcome addition to a theoretical but as-yet unscheduled Matchroom Boxing homecoming card headlined by IBF junior welterweight titleholder Liam Paro that would also likely feature WBC women’s featherweight beltholder Skye Nicolson. Brisbane or the Gold Coast would be frontrunners to host the event, with all three southpaws hailing from the Sunshine State of Queensland. In the meantime, Paro is scheduled to face Richardson Hitchins on December 7 in Puerto Rico.
AUSTRALIA BY ANTHONY COCKS Ring Magazine and IBF cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia plans to become a three-division titleholder after he unifies all four major 200-pound belts. The 29-year-old Australian southpaw has long coveted a shot at Chris Billam-Smith, but after a year of call-outs and offers of cash bonuses, Opetaia was unable to coax the Englishman to the negotiating table. Opetaia believes it is his destiny to become undisputed, but the real question here is how long he will choose to stay at cruiserweight if unification bouts don’t materialize. “I want to be the undisputed cruiserweight champion,” said Opetaia (26- 0, 20 KOs) on DAZN’s mini-documentary Boxing’s My Life ahead of his six-round beatdown of Jack Massey in October. “Then we move up. We can go to bridgerweight (a division only recognized by the WBC
and WBA, with a weight limit of 224 pounds) and win a world title there. Go to heavyweight and win a world title there. I honestly believe I can do these things. “We’ve just got to take one fight at a time. Focus, train hard, stay busy. We can’t get comfortable. I believe the rest will just fall into place.” It looks like unification bouts will elude Opetaia for a while yet. The IBF granted him an exemption to face England’s Massey on the proviso that he take on the New Jersey-based sanctioning body’s little- known mandatory contender, Huseyin Cinkara (22-0, 18 KOs), a 39-year-old Germany-born Turk, no later than January 20 next year.
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Tim Tszyu relocates to Las Vegas looking to put horror year behind him Former WBO junior middleweight beltholder Tim Tszyu will be forced to rebuild in 2025 after what can only be described as a disappointing year. The 30-year-old from the Sydney suburb of Rockdale won over many fans with his gutsy effort against Sebastian Fundora in March, battling his way to a split decision loss in his Las Vegas debut despite suffering a nasty scalp gash that bled profusely throughout the bout. In his challenge to IBF 154-pound titleholder Bakhram Murtazaliev (23-0, 17 KOs) in October, he fared even worse. The 31-year-old Russian powerhouse belted Tszyu around the ring, dropping him three times in the second round and once more in
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Demsey McKean to fight Moses Itauma on Usyk-Fury II undercard Once-beaten heavyweight Demsey McKean will square up against rising prospect
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