Even contemplating Itauma’s generational expertise and fast rise, his goal of changing into heavyweight boxing’s youngest world champion has proved wildly optimistic. Indeed, that specific ship has sailed now that Itauma is older than the mark set by Mike Tyson – 20 years, 4 months and 23 days – in 1986. Comparisons have been drawn between Itauma and Tyson, given their energy and success at a younger age, although the previous moved to distance himself from such discourse this week, saying: “I guess we’re kind of a polar opposite… We both just love knockouts.”
And whereas murmurings of potential fights towards Filip Hrgovic, Murat Gassiev, Lawrence Okolie and Oleksandr Usyk proceed to swirl, Itauma has insisted that his focus is firmly fastened on Franklin. Speaking in his pre-fight press convention, the Chatham fighter mentioned: “I have a serious opponent in Jermaine Franklin. We’ve asked for this fight [for] a year and a half, or something like that, so now we’ve got it. I feel this is the kind of the final piece to the puzzle.”
In his three-year skilled profession Itauma has contested simply 26 rounds, a lot of which ended prematurely. Testing himself towards a fighter of Franklin’s calibre will present additional perception into precisely what the boxing phenom is able to and the way he can develop shifting ahead. “There’s questions that my team want to know about me, there’s questions that I want to know about myself and I’m sure that there are a lot of questions that the fans want to know about me as well,” Itauma mentioned. “So I feel like Jermanine Franklin is the final piece of the puzzle. So when I get asked about other fighters [I think to myself]that’s not going to happen if I don’t get through Jermaine Franklin. This is a serious fight and I’m looking forward to it.”
Main-event ring stroll anticipated at 11pm GMT
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/boxing/2026/03/28/itauma-vs-franklin-latest-fight-updates-scores-result/