{"id":166201,"date":"2025-06-07T23:30:21","date_gmt":"2025-06-07T23:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/166201\/"},"modified":"2025-06-07T23:30:21","modified_gmt":"2025-06-07T23:30:21","slug":"moses-itauma-vs-dillian-whyte-ball-against-goodman-cacace-to-face-ford-on-aug-16-in-riyadh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/166201\/","title":{"rendered":"Moses Itauma vs. Dillian Whyte, Ball Against Goodman, Cacace To Face Ford On Aug. 16 In Riyadh"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fast-rising heavyweight Moses Itauma<\/a> will look to reach contender status as he\u2019s in the process of finalizing a deal to meet Dillian Whyte<\/a> on Aug. 16 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, sources told The Ring.
The heavyweight clash features The Ring\u2019s 2024 Prospect of the Year i<\/a>n his toughest test yet as he looks to reach contended status with a convincing victory. The bout will headline a Riyadh Season event surrounding the Esports World Cup and represents Itauma\u2019s first major main event. <\/p>\n

Nick Ball <\/a>will defend his WBA featherweight title vs. Australia\u2019s Sam Goodman<\/a> in the chief-support bout.
Liverpool\u2019s Ball, The Ring\u2019s No. 3 boxer at 126 pounds<\/a>, will make his third defense. Goodman, The Ring\u2019s No. 4 boxer at 122, will move up one weight class for his first title shot.
In a third featured bout, former champions Anthony Cacace<\/a> and Raymond Ford meet in a coin-flip junior lightweight fight. Cacace is rated No. 3 by The Ring at 130 pounds while Ford is 10th. <\/p>\n

And it\u2019s the big guys who will end the evening in the first event in Riyadh since Canelo Alvarez defeated William Scull in May. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Itauma (12-0, 10 KOs) is just 20 years old as he advances toward a title shot<\/a> next year. The Slovakia native stopped Mike Balogun in two rounds<\/a> last month. His litmus test will come against Whyte, 37, in an all-British clash. <\/p>\n

Whyte (31-3, 21 KOs) was stopped by Tyson Fury in April 2023 in his lone title shot. He was set to meet Anthony Joshua in a rematch four months later, but a third incident concerning banned substances scrapped the fight. He was cleared to resume his career in March 2024 and scored two stay-busy wins last year. <\/p>\n

Ball, at 5-foot-2, is quickly emerging as one of the U.K.\u2019s top attractions. The 28-year-old broke out last year with a pair of thrilling fights. Ball (22-0-1, 13 KOs) was held to a disputed draw with Rey Vargas in March after he dropped the champion twice. <\/p>\n

Ball won the title in June with a split-decision over Ford. His two defenses were inside-the-distance wins over Ronny Rios and TJ Downey. Now, Ball will face his second consecutive Australian opponent. <\/p>\n

Goodman (20-0, 8 KOs) was set for his first title shot, a meeting with Naoya Inoue in Tokyo in December that was cancelled when he suffered a cut over his eye in sparring. The 26-year-old returned last month with a stay-busy decision win in Australia. <\/p>\n

Belfast\u2019s Cacace (24-1, 9 KOs) continued his torrid run last month with a 10th-round stoppage of former champion Leigh Wood.<\/a> The 36-year-old won the IBF title with an upset TKO victory over Joe Cordina in May 2024. Cacace comfortably outpointed another former champion, Josh Warrington, in September.
Ford (17-1-1, 8 KOs) was in two firefights last year; the other was a title-winning decision over Otabek Kholmatov in March<\/a>. Down on the cards, Ford stopped Kholmatov with just seven seconds remaining in the fight. The 26-year-old from Camden, New Jersey, has now competed twice at 130 pounds.
Mike Coppinger is The Ring\u2019s senior insider. He formerly was ESPN\u2019s boxing insider. Follow him on X<\/a>\/Instagram: @MikeCoppinger<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fast-rising heavyweight Moses Itauma will look to reach contender status as he\u2019s in the process of finalizing a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166202,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,10188,10181,10187,10186,10179,4496,10182,10183,10184,10185,10180,10193,10192,10175,10173,10174,10190,10176,10172,10194,10189,79,10191,10171,10178,16,15,10177],"class_list":{"0":"post-166201","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-boxing-community","10":"tag-boxing-fights","11":"tag-boxing-history","12":"tag-boxing-interviews","13":"tag-boxing-magazine","14":"tag-boxing-news","15":"tag-boxing-photos","16":"tag-boxing-rankings","17":"tag-boxing-results","18":"tag-boxing-schedule","19":"tag-boxing-videos","20":"tag-disqualification","21":"tag-draw","22":"tag-fight","23":"tag-fighter","24":"tag-fighter-news","25":"tag-knockout","26":"tag-latest-boxing-matches","27":"tag-ring","28":"tag-ring-magazine","29":"tag-split-decision","30":"tag-sports","31":"tag-technical-knockout","32":"tag-the-ring","33":"tag-top-fighters","34":"tag-uk","35":"tag-united-kingdom","36":"tag-upcoming-boxing-matches"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}