Barry McGuigan has given his view of what went wrong for Moses Itauma during his defeat to Filip Hrgovic this past weekend.
Itauma is just 21 years old and was vying to become Britain’s youngest ever world heavyweight champion. However, his inexperience cost him as he emptied his tank in the first eight rounds, winning each one convincingly but taking as much out of himself as he was his more battle-hardened opponent.
Hrgovic is 34 and a veteran of 22 fights, plenty of which have been hard-fought points wins, while Itauma had never been past six rounds before, with 12 of his 14 wins coming by knockout inside the first half of fights.
Despite an impressive showing that saw Itauma landing plenty of heavy shots all throughout the early part of the fight, McGuigan was direct with his assessment of what went wrong when speaking to Boxing News,
“At the end of the day, he set a pace that he couldn’t sustain and he gassed out. He’s nobody to blame but himself and his coach. But is he talented? Unbelievably talented. Hrgovic was magnanimous afterwards and said this is the best kid I’ve ever fought. He may not hit had individually hard as Daniel Dubois, but he’s got more to him.
“He knows that he is to blame for that. It’s not just him, his coach; you don’t turn up 75% fit for a world title fight. You just don’t. If there is not enough to do 12 rounds, I know it’s not easy; he’s knocked everybody out bar two, and he’s got into that I can knock anybody out attitude, but that’s dangerous.
“What happens when that doesn’t happen? Then what have you got to fall back on? If, in the process of trying to get someone out of there, you’ve emptied your tank, it doesn’t refill, so you’ve got to have the intelligence to let it out slower. He didn’t need to win those rounds as convincingly as he did.”
Itauma will have learnt plenty in his maiden world title shot, while Hrgovic will now defend his IBF belt against mandatory challenger Frank Sanchez before going on to look for unifications, including with his former victor and WBO champion Daniel Dubois.
