World heavyweight boxing title aspirant, Martin Bakole, has described Moses Itauma’s second round defeat of fellow Briton, Mike Balogun, as a commendable victory over a ‘bum.’
Bakole says it’s typically one-way traffic between him and Moses Itauma – that he doesn’t aim Itauma, even while the younger heavyweight speaks critically about Bakole.
The 33-year-old Bakole, who lives in Scotland, was in attendance in Glasgow on Saturday for Itauma’s two-round clobbering of Balogun on the undercard of Josh Taylor’s loss to Ekow Essuman. And when asked about Itauma’s performance, Bakole didn’t mince words.
“He did well – but against someone who’s a bum,” Bakole told Boxing Social. “They have to give him a good test (…) he needs to fight good quality people and try to test himself if he wants to be a world champion tomorrow.”
The 20-year-old Itauma is now 12-0 (10 KOs). Balogun, who came in with a record of 21-1 (16 KOs), is an unranked 41-year-old who hadn’t fought in 14 months and had failed to make it past the second round against former cruiserweight titleholder Murat Gassiev in 2023.
Bakole, 21-2-1 (16 KOs), was previously described as the heavyweight division’s boogeyman after taking out Jared Anderson last August. But then Bakole came in extremely overweight and on extremely late notice against Joseph Parker in February and was stopped in two rounds. Most recently, Bakole fought Efe Ajagba to a draw on the May 3 undercard of Saul “Canelo” Alvarez-William Scull.
Itauma, in a recent interview with BoxNation, spoke of Bakole’s “trash” performance against Ajagba and how a potential meeting with Bakole doesn’t make as much sense anymore.
Those words didn’t seem to bother Bakole.
“He spoke his mind and I never mentioned his name,” Bakole said. “I’m thinking about getting into a big fight. I’m talking about the top five or six. I don’t know if he’s a top 10 or top 20, but he’s a boxer, he’s a heavyweight. He’s doing what he’s doing and he’s speaking his mind. But it’s his opinion. That’s his opinion, and I respect that.”
Itauma needed less than half a round to put Balogun on notice early, sending the former NFL linebacker toppling to the canvas with a pair of picture-perfect left hands. Itauma then repeated the favour just nine seconds into the second round, dropping Balogun again with a sharp right hook, before sealing the deal just 30 seconds later with one of the finest counterrights you’ll ever see.
The official time of the stoppage came at the 46-second mark of round two.
Itauma is widely considered the top heavyweight prospect in professional boxing and debuted at No. 1 on Uncrowned’s inaugural Top 25 U-25 list for up-and-coming athletes in combat sports.
