ITAUMA OUT TO MAKE HISTORY AT THE O2

This Saturday night, history could be made as the undefeated heavyweight sensation Moses Itauma aims to become the second-youngest heavyweight world champion in boxing history when he takes on the experienced Croat Filip Hrgovic for the vacant IBF World Heavyweight Title.

On the undercard, there are some cracking match-ups, but we will start off by taking an in-depth look at one of the most highly anticipated heavyweight fights of the year.

Moses Itauma vs Filip Hrgovic – Vacant IBF World Heavyweight Title

One of, if not THE, future superstars of the heavyweight division returns this weekend on home soil as Moses Itauma looks to become the second-youngest world champion in heavyweight boxing history when he faces off with Filip Hrgovic at The O2 in London.

After the fight was officially announced in the middle of June, the heavyweight division was blown wide open a week later when the unified champion of the world, Oleksandr Usyk, announced he would be vacating his IBF, WBC & WBA world heavyweight titles.

It was then expected that the winner of this would fight the #1-ranked Frank Sanchez for the belt, but then, early this month, it was confirmed that the vacant IBF World Heavyweight Title WOULD be up for grabs in this fight, with the winner having to fight the Cuban Sanchez in their first defence.

If this fight wasn’t big before, the carrot that is the IBF World Heavyweight Title just made it absolutely enormous.

Highly regarded as one of the future superstars of not just the heavyweight division but boxing in general, it’s been pretty much plain sailing for Moses Itauma so far in his professional career.

14 fights, 14 wins and 12 by way of stoppage – he has quite literally demolished everyone in his path.

If the hype train was slowly running out of coal ahead of his last fight, it certainly topped up its load and more after it.

Up against the tough American Jermaine Franklin Jr, a man who went 12 rounds with both Anthony Joshua and Dillian Whyte, he looked like the perfect opponent to get rounds in for Moses and actually ask him serious questions to see if he was, like many people suggested, the future of the heavyweight division.

Moses had all of the answers and more.

Five rounds and the job was done. He did to Franklin what the likes of Joshua and Whyte couldn’t do, and that was stop the American and make him look fairly ordinary in the process.

It was a statement victory for Itauma and, despite the fact that he’s never gone past six rounds in his 14-fight career so far, it set him up perfectly for the test of the 6’6” Croatian Filip Hrgovic this Saturday night.

A talented amateur, Hrgovic won bronze at the 2016 Rio Olympics before making his professional debut in September 2017.

He coasted through his first 14 fights before suffering a first-round knockdown and going on to claim a unanimous points decision victory over Zhilei Zhang back in 2022.

Stoppage victories over Demsey McKean and Mark De Mori followed before the Croatian suffered the first defeat of his professional career to Daniel Dubois.

In what was a brutal fight for both men, Dubois’s power pieced up Hrgovic fairly badly, with the doctors stepping in to wave the fight off midway through the eighth round.

It was a huge blow for Hrgovic, but the bounce-back has been impressive.

Three straight victories over Joe Joyce, David Adeleye and Dave Allen followed. He now faces his fifth Brit in a row, but for the first time in what will be his 22-fight career, there will be a full world title on the line.

To the fight now, and what a fight it is.

These are two men who are known for starting fast. Itauma has stopped 11 of his 14 opponents inside two rounds, whilst Hrgovic has stopped 13 of his 21 opponents in the first half of those respective fights.

That, on paper, looks like it’ll be a shootout, but don’t expect that.

Hrgovic has a habit of struggling slightly with quick, hard-hitting southpaws, as we saw against Zhang, and Itauma will be more than aware of that. But this is, quite literally, a HUGE step up for the 21-year-old and, after seeing what Hrgovic did to Dave Allen in his last fight, Itauma knows that he potentially has someone more than capable of switching his lights off early doors.

Itauma holds most of the advantages here. His hands are quicker, his feet are quicker and he’s probably got more one-punch power, but what Hrgovic has is experience, and experience alone can quite easily counteract all of the advantages that Itauma has.

He needs to be patient. The openings will come and, despite Hrgovic having one of the best chins in boxing, he’s got a heck of a lot of scar tissue on that face of his and it won’t be hard for Itauma to piece him up in a similar way to what Dubois did in the only defeat of Hrgovic’s professional career so far.

Moses has already shown that his IQ, for a 21-year-old, is frightening and, as well as his physical attributes, he’ll need to use his mental ones just as much.

If he can use his brain, use his feet and use his hands in sync with each other, he’s got more than enough ability to stop or, at the very least, beat Hrgovic to become the second-youngest heavyweight world champion in boxing history.

For Hrgovic, he needs to use his experience to his advantage as much as possible.

If there are any doubts about Itauma, it’s whether he can go 12 hard rounds and whether he can take any sort of punishment later on in fights.

The Croatian needs to start quickly in the first couple of rounds, hammer that body of Itauma’s and then look to take the fight deep, without giving him too many opportunities to have success of his own.

Tire the younger man out both physically and mentally. Use feints, be dirty in the clinch, do anything to upset Itauma’s rhythm. As they say in the game, he needs to “old man” him.

The hand speed of Itauma will be a big problem for Hrgovic. As we saw in the Dubois and Adeleye fights, he pieces up fairly quickly, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him go all out for the first six rounds and just look to overpower and suffocate Itauma in the way that he did to Dave Allen in his last fight.

It really is a tricky fight to call and, understandably so, many have Itauma as a big favourite, but Filip Hrgovic is one man that you cannot afford to write off, especially with his professional career potentially on the line if he suffers the second defeat of his career.

A fight to really look out for on the undercard is the chief support, where Constantin Ursu will be defending his British and Commonwealth Welterweight Titles against Ben Vaughan in what will be an absolute war.

Another fight to watch out for is the heavyweight showdown between Nelson Hysa and Thomas Nammo. With 38 fights and 36 knockouts between them, they’ll both be looking to put themselves in the world title mix with a highlight-reel KO here.

A stacked card from top to bottom – do not miss it!