Moses Itauma has officially rejected an offered IBF heavyweight eliminator, which would have seen the rising star face Frank Sanchez, with the winner receiving a world title shot from the sanctioning body.
Oleksandr Usyk is the current undisputed champion of the division, holding the WBC, WBA, IBF, and WBO titles.
26-year-old American and Olympic silver medalist Richard Torrez (13-0, 11 KO) will now be offered the chance to face Sanchez (25-1, 18 KO), who is in this fine position because he beat a guy
who came in 18-24 in February, after being battered by Agit Kabayel in his prior fight.
Efe Ajagba had passed on the IBF eliminator, which led to Itauma (13-0, 11 KO) receiving the offer.
Torrez is promoted by Top Rank, who are currently swaying in the wind as a promotional outfit after their deal with ESPN ended in the summer. Two months later, and there’s still no concrete word on Bob Arum’s company landing a new broadcast deal.
Cuba’s Sanchez, 33, is a risky proposition for up-and-coming names like Itauma and Torrez, not just because he’s a fundamentally sound veteran fighter, but because combined with that, he lacks real name value, and other than Turki Alalshikh over-paying for one of his fights to stick on a card, he just doesn’t have a lot of market value. It stinks to have to talk about boxing like this instead of like a sport, but it’s always been a reality of the sport, perhaps now more than ever.
If Torrez were to also turn down the fight, the next offer would likely to be to Daniel Dubois, who is currently ranked No. 7 by the IBF, just behind Itauma at five and Torrez at six. Sanchez is actually ranked No. 4, behind an empty top slot, Derek Chisora — who is uninvolved in any of this — and Ajagba.
Behind Dubois and rounding out the top 10 for the IBF are Filip Hrgovic, Jared Anderson, and Michael Hunter. Only in boxing could “No. 4” vs “No. 9” or the like fill a “No. 1” vacancy, but basically all of this is nonsense that doesn’t reflect the actual reality of the sport thanks to technicalities and internal rules from sanctioning bodies about who can and cannot be ranked. Eventually, the IBF will line up an eliminator, it will actually happen, and at some point the winner will fight for the IBF title.
