LONDON, England — It was a glass window on the door leading into Ben Davison's gym that convinced Moses Itauma that he had finally found the right coach.

Itauma had not yet walked through that door, much less done a session with the Harlow-based trainer, but what he saw through the window that day in the spring 2024 suggested that things worked a bit differently in this corner of Essex.

In his own words, the heavyweight, 19 years old at the time, was already starting to hate boxing. The routine felt monotonous and the sport seemed basic and boring to him, even though he was being touted as the best prospect on the planet.

"I felt like I reached a barrier and I was unable to surpass that barrier," Itauma tells The Ring ahead of his key Aug. 16 clash with Dillian Whyte on DAZN PPV.

"But having been in the ring sparring with those top heavyweights like Daniel Dubois, Tyson Fury, Joe Joyce and Lawrence Okolie and whatnot, I know there are levels to boxing. I just felt like I was unable to learn anymore."

You would think that a boxer of that age, only a handful of fights into their professional career, would feel like an empty cup with everything still to learn but something was not clicking with Itauma and the sport.

Davison, he says, changed all that but Itauma nearly never went at all. Given the gym is already stacked full of high-profile boxers Anthony Joshua, Fabio Wardley, Leigh Wood and many others, Itauma assumed that he would not receive the sort of attention he felt like he needed to ever progress.

Only a pep-talk from his elder brother Karol — and then a glimpse through that window — convinced him otherwise.

"I'll be honest," he explains. "When I thought about Ben I thought he already had too many stars in the gym and he wouldn’t have time for me, he won't give me the time I need from a trainer. I didn't even want to go to the gym but my brother said there's no harm in trying Ben Davison. I tried out a lot of coaches and Ben Davison was actually the last person I tried.

"So I went there and as I walked up to the doors, I saw there's like a glass window on the door where you can see inside the gym. I looked through it and Ben's got all my facts up, and he's writing in his notepad and whatnot.

"Once I was inside, he said, 'Look, you do this, I don't know if you're aware of it, but you do it.' None of the other coaches had really done anything like that. Then it was when I started sparring and he was like, 'OK cool, if you do this he'll do this and if you can capitalise on it.'

"I thought, 'There ain’t no way,'... but then I go and did it, and pulled it off and then I realised he's right, that it works. We clicked from there.

"I don't want to disrespect any of the coaches I tried or did work with, I love and respect them, but with Ben he taught me a different side to boxing. There is more to boxing than punch punch, get punched back. There is actually a whole chess game to this."

Since starting work together last year, Itauma has won four times, all inside the distance, with none getting beyond the second round. There has been a clear stepping through the levels, too, with fights against 22-1 Demsey McKean and 21-1 Mike Balogun replacing the more traditional journeymen opponents from his first few fights.

But while the youngster took care of both in clinical style on fight night, it has not been all plain sailing for the Itauma-Davison axis behind the scenes. As with most new fighter-trainer relationships, there is a certain period of bedding in, particularly when the methods are drastically different to what had come before.

He adds: "When I first joined the Ben Davison gym, I was getting really frustrated in the first couple of spars because there's a lot to think about. And then it was just a case of, like driving, the more you do it, the better you get. It’s like anything really.

"The more practice I had, the more I was able to perfect it. And obviously, everyone's praising me for how much of a boxer I am, but it's all down to the preparation, the team and, obviously, moi.

"That's why I went around searching for a new trainer. I like getting something new just to kind of keep things fresh. Sometimes you might just need a bit of change.

"But the most impressive thing is that there are so many stars in the gym but each individual fighter gets the necessary time from Ben and [assistant coaches] Lee [Wylie] and Barry [Smith]. For me I find that impressive because that was my first initial concern."

Meanwhile, around 1,500 miles south and a few clicks west, his opponent, Whyte, has been training in the now familiar surroundings of Portugal, where he is also a resident.

As always, Buddy McGirt has overseen the training camp, but the Hall of Famer recently revealed that he has not watched any tape of Itauma whatsoever. Whether or not that is actually true, Itauma does not mind too much. "All I can say is my team have watched Dillian Whyte," he says. "And we know what to do."

As is usual in recent years, Whyte has maintained a low profile during training camp with only the odd appearance on social media and a few training videos circling recently. It is obvious he has trained exceptionally hard for this fight and he looks in supreme shape at 37.

There have been no press visits to camp and only occasional media access at all. During one Zoom call, The Ring asked the one-time world champion how his camp is set up.

"In Portugal I get around," he said. "Where I stay is where I stay and then the gym is down the road. I train at a friend of mine's space that he owns called Champion's Gym.

"Me and him sat down and spoke about it and worked out how I could do my camps here. It's not open to the public yet, there's another guy who does some PT and then we just use the gym and train. It has been a massive help and he's a good friend of mine."

This fight will be his first outing in Saudi Arabia since facing Mariusz Wach in Diriyah in December 2019. Having been given only a few weeks' notice for that fight, part of the undercard for Anthony Joshua's victorious world title rematch against Andy Ruiz, he came in at a career-high 271lbs. Despite being out of shape, he won widely on all three cards but it wasn't pretty.

Nearly six years on, he returns. He will undoubtedly be fitter and almost certainly markedly lighter. But the scales, he insists, have not come out once during training camp.

"I've just been cracking on man," he said. "I've just been focusing on giving Buddy what he needs, what he wants to see and how he wants to see it. I've been listening to the team. They've been around me a long time so I've learned to just do what they ask because they probably know me more than I know myself.

"But I haven't stepped on the scales since last December, since my last fight."

As fight week begins, both fighters have left the relative sanctuary of those gyms as they finalise their preparation on Saudi soil and count down the days until Saturday night. "The hard work is done," Whyte says. "Now we just have to fight."

Itauma-Whyte is the main event of the Esports World Cup fight week and will be shown live and exclusively on DAZN.