The 21-year-old has emerged as one of the brightest young stars in British sport following his scintillating rise since turning professional at 18.

Itauma's new level of profile also opened doors to the usual trappings of celebrity culture which the southpaw says can be hard to resist.

But after briefly flirting with London's party scene, Itauma (13-0, 11 KOs) has already decided that enough is enough.

In a media roundtable before his second main event, he said: “I feel like I lost myself to find myself again. I know you've got to enjoy yourself and got to relax, but for me personally I just felt like I wasn't really doing my purpose.

"My No. 1 priority is boxing, but when I was at these parties, obviously it's great, it's fun to be around new people but I just felt like I needed to get back in the gym and save the parties for when I retire.



"A lot of my friends could have been something but then they got caught up in the party life. If you ask my old coaches they will tell you I wasn't the most talented boxer, didn't hit the hardest and wasn't the best but had the consistency to stay on whereas everyone else went to parties.

"So when I was at these parties, I don't want to get caught up in that cycle. Obviously we're trying to achieve something. Maybe I'm just boring."

Itauma faces Jermaine Franklin (24-2, 15 KOs) on Saturday night at Co-op Live Arena, Manchester.

The Ring's No. 7 heavyweight is already considered the No. 1 contender by the WBA and WBO, meaning that a world heavyweight title shot may be next should Itauma dispatch Franklin as expected.


But he says his pursuit of boxing greatness has already cost him friendships.

"When you start achieving a little bit of success, you start to see value in the relationships you have," he says. "So I started realizing that my bond with my family became stronger and more important and then the ones that weren't just dropped out.

"Everyone says, 'Oh you've changed, you've this, you've that.' But I'm supposed to, my whole life has changed. I'm not supposed to stay a caterpillar.

"It's not even that I don't want to go to the parties or do what they're doing but it's just that the conversations they're having, you're no longer relating to. The things they talk about, we're not talking about the same things.

"With me, I feel like everybody's in tune with the same thing so when it comes to my family, especially if they're talking to me, they're talking to me about boxing. Everything has value and I feel like I didn't really have that with my old set of friends."

And while Itauma has decided to streamline his social life in his quest for success, he has given up on social media entirely.



"The only thing I've got is WhatsApp," he says. "I see a lot of people spending too much time on social media and I was one of those people as well.

"Then at one point I realized I've got too much stress in my mind, too much going on so I just deleted it.

"What you've got to realize is that social media isn't social media. It's just about yourself because it picks up on the habits that you are interested in. It picks up on things that you're interested in and mirrors it back to you.

"So you're not distracted by social media, you're distracted by yourself and I just didn't want that distraction anymore. There's just too many things so I thought let me just get rid of this thing completely.”

Itauma and Franklin had been supposed to meet on January 24 until he suffered a biceps injury during sparring which caused an eight-week delay.

The initial date meant that Itauma was forced to keep his 21st birthday celebrations, on December 28, very low key. Nearly three months on, he has still not managed to celebrate properly.

"I think I'll have my birthday in mid-May," he adds.

"On my actual birthday I woke up, did a run, went to the gym for a boxing session and then my family told me they'd booked a restaurant.

"I drove to the location but everybody was there as a surprise, they had booked out a lodge for me. I think they were expecting me to stay up and party with them but I had sparring the next morning so I even left that party early."