Eight Rounds Won, One Fight Lost
Right then. Let's not beat around the bush — I got this one wrong, and so did nearly everybody else. Moses Itauma did almost everything I said he would at the O2 on Saturday night. He was faster, sharper, levels above in the exchanges. He put Filip Hrgovic on the canvas in the second round with a sweeping left hand and banked round after round like a man collecting rent. And then, somewhere around the eighth, the petrol light came on — and heavyweight boxing does not do breakdown cover.
By the ninth Itauma was running on fumes, sagging into a neutral corner with nothing left to offer, and his corner did the only decent thing left and threw the towel. Hrgovic vs Itauma goes in the books as a ninth-round TKO, and the vacant IBF heavyweight title goes home with the Croatian.
Give Hrgovic His Flowers
Make no mistake, this was one of the great heavyweight comebacks by a man everyone — me included — had written off as the B-side. Filip Hrgovic got dropped, got outlanded for eight rounds, and never once stopped walking forward. That lighter, leaner body he showed at Friday's chaotic weigh-in wasn't for show — it was built to survive the storm and drown the kid late. That is a proper championship gameplan, executed by a proper professional.
He is the first Croatian heavyweight world champion in history, and after the slap, the shove and all the pantomime of fight week, he had the grace to call Itauma the future in the ring afterwards. Class, that.
The Stamina Question Nobody Wanted To Ask
Here's the uncomfortable truth about Moses Itauma: fourteen fights, barely any rounds, and every question about his engine answered with a shrug — because nobody had ever survived long enough to ask it properly. Hrgovic asked it. The answer was brutal. The kid poured everything into eight rounds of brilliance and had nothing left for the ninth. That is not a talent problem. That is an experience problem, and experience problems get fixed.
Luke's Final Word
I said Itauma inside eight in my final verdict, and if you know, you know — I don't hide from a wrong pick. But listen: he is 21 years old. Lennox lost. Klitschko lost twice and ruled a decade. The talent that won those eight rounds does not evaporate because the ninth went wrong. Give him eighteen months, proper rounds and a rebuilt engine, and he wins a world title. Hrgovic, meanwhile, holds a belt in a division with Usyk and Daniel Dubois circling — and every one of those fights is now enormous. Check the landscape on our fight cards page.