{"id":347655,"date":"2025-08-15T22:46:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T22:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/347655\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T22:46:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T22:46:11","slug":"itauma-vs-whyte-body-snatcher-looks-trim-as-he-weighs-lightest-in-10-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/347655\/","title":{"rendered":"Itauma vs Whyte: &#8216;Body Snatcher&#8217; looks trim as he weighs lightest in 10 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Whyte lost his only world title bid to Tyson Fury in 2022 and has struggled for consistency in recent years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Whether he can turn back the clock remains to be seen. He weighed 18st 9lb (118.38kg) during a lacklustre win over Ebenezer Tetteh last December.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But eight months on, he appears in the best shape of recent years and wore a grim, serious look as he took to the stage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He is at his lightest since his win over Marcelo Nascimento in 2015.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">With 31 wins from 34 fights, Whyte insists he still harbours world title ambitions. A defeat by Itauma would all but end those hopes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Itauma has also slimmed down for his toughest test to date, weighing nine pounds lighter than at his previous fight &#8211; a destructive second-round stoppage of Mike Balogun in May. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A win on Saturday would edge Itauma closer to a world title shot. The Slovakia-born fighter is seen by many as the future face of British heavyweight boxing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I just want to get to the easy bit, the fight,&#8221; Itauma said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">With Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua nearing the twilight of their careers, Itauma has been tipped as their potential successor on the global stage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Whyte lost his only world title bid to Tyson Fury in 2022 and has struggled for consistency in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-347655","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115035215164890952","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347655","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=347655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}