Australian heavyweight Demsey McKean is trying to bounce again from his lone profession loss when he takes on Moses Itauma at Kingdom Area in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on December 21.
The bout has been added to the blockbuster card headlined by the rematch between RING Journal heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk and primary contender Tyson Fury.
The 34-year-old McKean, from Ipswich in Queensland, might be returning after greater than a 12 months on the sidelines following his Twelfth-round stoppage loss to Filip Hrgovic on the O2 Area in London, England in August final 12 months.
A niggling hand harm saved him out of the ring for the remainder of the 12 months and a deliberate struggle in March or April by no means eventuated. Nonetheless, the six-foot-six southpaw remained within the fitness center.
“I’ve been within the fitness center all 12 months, just about,” mentioned McKean (22-1, 14 knockouts) to The Ring. “I’ve been sparring, I’ve been within the fitness center each day, so it’s not like I’m leaping up off the sofa. We’ve been searching for fights all 12 months and dealing with setback after setback, which is one thing I’m not used to, that’s for certain. However now I’ve bought a date, which is ideal, and we’ve bought a full 10-week coaching camp to hone in. We’re in a very good place in the mean time. We’ve been engaged on method and we’re in good stead 10 weeks out.”
Slovakian-born Brit Itauma (10-0, 8 KOs) has made an impression since turning professional at the beginning of final 12 months. The 19-year-old lefty has an aggressive, explosive fashion that has seen all eight of his knockout victims fall earlier than the tip of the second spherical. With some followers and pundits touting the flashy prospect as the way forward for the division, McKean might be on the market to show them fallacious.
“He’s bought expertise to burn,” admitted McKean. “He’s a artful southpaw and he’s fairly quick, however he’s additionally fairly younger, so he’s going to be immature, inexperienced, and we’re going to look to capitalize on these issues.
“However he’s fairly good. I feel he’s one of many higher prospects round in the mean time for a heavyweight. He comes together with his personal belongings, however he undoubtedly hasn’t fought anybody in his 10 fights. The ten fights he’s had haven’t been towards anybody of word in any respect. They’ve been completely satisfied to take a seat in there and acquire their paycheck. Nearly all of them didn’t even throw a punch again. It’s going to be rather a lot totally different towards an skilled southpaw who’s in high situation and who’s going to throw some punches again.”
McKean is right in saying that Itauma’s resume lacks depth. Probably the most notable identify on his ledger is pale former fringe contender Mariusz Wach, who he confronted in his final outing in London in July, stopping him in two. The 44-year-old Pole had misplaced 4 of his earlier six bouts going again 4 years, though in equity he had solely been stopped as soon as in that point. Nonetheless, it’s troublesome to know the way a lot to learn into Itauma’s early victory towards Wach.
The McKean struggle ought to inform us much more about Itauma, who the Queenslander thinks may battle to seek out high quality sparring for this camp.
“After I was within the UK, there was no southpaw sparring,” mentioned McKean, who was primarily based in Essex for a few years. “I feel Moses was the one southpaw within the UK and his fitness center wasn’t too removed from the Matchroom Fitness center once I was coaching there. I do know he was sparring with Jordan Thompson for a bit earlier than he fought Jai Opetaia they usually struggled to get southpaw sparring. That’s once I left as properly they usually had that struggle. They requested me to come back again for sparring, which wasn’t going to occur.
“There’s no southpaw sparring within the UK, so that they’re going to should in all probability fly some in. However right here in Australia, we’ve bought heaps. We’ve bought Jai Opetaia, he simply fought this week however as soon as he rests up, we’ll in all probability get some rounds in with him in the direction of the tip of the camp. We’ve bought Floyd Masson, Luke Modini, Kris Terzievski from Melbourne, Liam Talivaa, we’ve bought one other beginner man who’s simply turned professional and is just about precisely the identical as Itauma, he likes to come back ahead, he’s a southpaw and he’s six-foot-three. We’ve truly bought lots of southpaws in south-east Queensland and from Melbourne who we are able to fly up when we have to. Jackson Murray is one other one. There’s loads. We don’t should look too exhausting for good high quality sparring.”
However the true story of the struggle might properly come right down to which boxer adjusts the perfect to their fellow lefthander’s stance.
“Everybody hates southpaws and all of us hate one another I’m fairly certain,” McKean laughed. “It’s a brand new problem for me as properly, however like I mentioned, we’ve bought 10 weeks to prep for this. We’ve truly identified we had been going to be preventing Moses for fairly some time now, so we have now been working quite a bit on southpaw ways as properly, so not less than we’ve had headstart. It might be somewhat bit totally different if we took the struggle on quick discover, like 4 or 5 weeks, however we’ve bought greater than sufficient time to have the ability to put together for it.
“I think about myself a 10-round fighter and he’s by no means gone that distance. He’s been six rounds and that’s about it. Along with his fashion, he’s a six-round fighter, and it’s exhausting to maintain that up over 10 rounds.
“We’ll see how the struggle performs out, however I’m fairly assured with our recreation plan.”
