There are tired fighters, and then there’s Moses Itauma in the ninth round of Saturday night’s heavyweight title bout against Filip Hrgovic.
With about 30 seconds left in what would be the last round of this odd but completely fascinating fight in London, the gifted but inexperienced Itauma was suddenly so gassed that he seemed utterly incapable of raising his hands above his waist, let alone defending himself from the durable Croatian veteran who was suddenly swarming him with blows from hell. Referee Howard Foster rightly called the fight and shocked the boxing world.
Itauma came in 14-0 with 12 knockouts, and was an overwhelming favorite to beat Hrgovic in the scheduled 12 round fight to take the IBF championship, which had been vacated by Oleksandr Usyk. At just 21 years old, Itauma would have been the second-youngest heavyweight champion in history, after Mike Tyson. But Itauma’s dominance and power meant he’d only boxed a total of 31 rounds as a pro. None of his previous fights had gone past six rounds; Itauma told the BBC he’d never even sparred 12 rounds in training camp.
And in boxing as much as any sport, sometimes stamina trumps all else. The storyline of Itauma v. Hrgovic unfolded much like tortoise v. hare and Ultraman vs. Zetton. Rope-a-dope redux, for real.
Over the first eight rounds, Itauma was every bit as fast and sharp as advertised, hitting Hrgovic with both hands and from every angle. His punches were as pretty as they were vicious. A lightning quick overhand right put Hrgovic down early in the second round, and very late in the fifth a creatively thrown left uppercut crashed into the 34-year old’s jaw with brutal effect. Compubox stats showed Itauma had a 146-61 edge in punches landed through eight rounds, and two of the judges had Itauma pitching a shutout on their scorecards heading into that fateful ninth frame (a third judge had given Hrgovic one round).
But maybe Hrgovic’s résumé shouldn’t have been so overlooked: He came into the fight 20-1, having logged 105 rounds over his pro career, including several 10- and 12-round fights, and his only loss came in 2024 to current WBO champ Daniel Dubois because of cuts above his eyes. For all the punishment he’d absorbed from Itauma, Hrgovic was still around and showed no signs of quitting. You invite bad things when you let a battle-tested underdog stick around in a fight.
As it turned out, Itauma had indeed done more grievous damage to himself than to Hrgovic while throwing all those punches. He was gasping for air and wincing on his stool between the later rounds. Yet he never slowed down or stopped throwing haymakers with bad intentions. Then Itauma’s gas tank hit E for all to see at the start of the ninth frame, and Hrgovic pounced. Hrgovic landed a series of savage shots to the body, sending Itauma into the ropes with a look of scared desperation in his eyes. Hrgovic then smothered the young phenom with heavy shoulders and big overhand rights. Itauma either didn’t know how to clutch and grab to slow down an opponent’s onslaught, since he’d never needed such skills, or simply lacked the energy to put that skill to use.
And as the crowd, which included Oasis auteur Noel Gallagher in a ringside seat, looked on in horror and awe at what was befalling their countryman, suddenly there was a race to see if it'd be Foster or Itauma’s trainer Ben Davison who would step in to save the spent phenom; Davison tossed a towel of surrender that hit the referee just as he was calling the bout. Itauma slumped to the canvas and stayed there.
As Hrgovic and his camp celebrated their stunning upset win, Itauma was stretchered out of the arena. Itauma’s promoter, Frank Warren, insinuated in an interview after the bout that his fighter had incurred a leg injury, though the fight tape revealed the most likely causes of his immobility were fatigue and loser’s limp.
The sweet science, however, definitely suffered a setback. Itauma is young, talented, handsome, and charismatic, though via violence more than words, much like a teenage Tyson when he burst on the scene. Hrgovic, now the almost accidental heavyweight champion, is old, grizzled, and completely unknown except to boxing hardcores. But he put on the fight of his life and has a belt to show for it.
In his post-fight interview, Hrgovic, now 21-1, said the fight unfolded just as he’d envisioned all along, where he’d force his sprinter of an opponent into an endurance race. Hrgovic was also humble and very complimentary to his vanquished opponent.
“He is definitely the future,” Hrgovic said. Alas, the future of boxing was on his way to the hospital as those words were spoken.
