Australian heavyweight Demsey McKean is looking to bounce back from his lone career loss when he takes on Moses Itauma at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on December 21.

The bout has been added to the blockbuster card headlined by the rematch between RING Magazine heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk and number one contender Tyson Fury.

The 34-year-old McKean, from Ipswich in Queensland, will be returning after more than a year on the sidelines following his 12th-round stoppage loss to Filip Hrgovic at the O2 Arena in London, England in August last year.

A niggling hand injury kept him out of the ring for the rest of the year and a planned fight in March or April never eventuated. Still, the six-foot-six southpaw remained in the gym.

“I’ve been in the gym all year, pretty much,” said McKean (22-1, 14 knockouts) to The Ring. “I’ve been sparring, I’ve been in the gym every day, so it’s not like I’m jumping up off the couch. We’ve been looking for fights all year and facing setback after setback, which is something I’m not used to, that’s for sure. But now I’ve got a date, which is perfect, and we’ve got a full 10-week training camp to hone in. We’re in a really good position at the moment. We’ve been working on technique and we’re in good stead 10 weeks out.”

Slovakian-born Brit Itauma (10-0, 8 KOs) has made an impression since turning pro at the start of last year. The 19-year-old lefty has an aggressive, explosive style that has seen all eight of his knockout victims fall before the end of the second round. With some fans and pundits touting the flashy prospect as the future of the division, McKean will be out there to prove them wrong.

“He’s got talent to burn,” admitted McKean. “He’s a crafty southpaw and he’s quite fast, but he is also quite young, so he’s going to be immature, inexperienced, and we’re going to look to capitalize on those things.

“But he is quite good. I think he’s one of the better prospects around at the moment for a heavyweight. He comes with his own assets, but he definitely hasn’t fought anyone in his 10 fights. The 10 fights he’s had haven’t been against anyone of note at all. They’ve been happy to sit in there and collect their paycheck. The majority of them didn’t even throw a punch back. It’s going to be a lot different against an experienced southpaw who’s in top condition and who is going to throw some punches back.”

McKean is correct in saying that Itauma’s resume lacks depth. The most notable name on his ledger is faded former fringe contender Mariusz Wach, who he faced in his last outing in London in July, stopping him in two. The 44-year-old Pole had lost four of his previous six bouts going back four years, although in fairness he had only been stopped once in that time. Still, it’s difficult to know how much to read into Itauma’s early victory against Wach.

The McKean fight should tell us a lot more about Itauma, who the Queenslander thinks might struggle to find quality sparring for this camp.

“When I was in the UK, there was no southpaw sparring,” said McKean, who was based in Essex for a couple of years. “I think Moses was the only southpaw in the UK and his gym wasn’t too far from the Matchroom Gym when I was training there. I know he was sparring with Jordan Thompson for a bit before he fought Jai Opetaia and they struggled to get southpaw sparring. That’s when I left as well and they had that fight. They asked me to come back for sparring, which wasn’t going to happen.

“There’s no southpaw sparring in the UK, so they’re going to have to probably fly some in. But here in Australia, we’ve got heaps. We’ve got Jai Opetaia, he just fought this week but once he rests up, we’ll probably get some rounds in with him towards the end of the camp. We’ve got Floyd Masson, Luke Modini, Kris Terzievski from Melbourne, Liam Talivaa, we’ve got another amateur guy who’s just turned pro and is pretty much exactly the same as Itauma, he likes to come forward, he’s a southpaw and he’s six-foot-three. We’ve actually got a lot of southpaws in south-east Queensland and from Melbourne who we can fly up when we need to. Jackson Murray is another one. There’s plenty. We don’t have to look too hard for good quality sparring.”

But the real story of the fight may well come down to which boxer adjusts the best to their fellow lefthander’s stance.

“Everyone hates southpaws and we all hate each other I’m pretty sure,” McKean laughed. “It’s a new challenge for me as well, but like I said, we’ve got 10 weeks to prep for this. We’ve actually known we were going to be fighting Moses for quite a while now, so we have been working quite a lot on southpaw tactics as well, so at least we’ve had a good headstart. It would be a little bit different if we took the fight on short notice, like four or five weeks, but we’ve got more than enough time to be able to prepare for it.

“I consider myself a 10-round fighter and he’s never gone that distance. He’s been six rounds and that’s about it. With his style, he’s a six-round fighter, and it’s hard to keep that up over 10 rounds.

“We’ll see how the fight plays out, but I’m quite confident with our game plan.”