Today marked the official kick off press conference for an August 29 heavyweight fight between rising star Moses Itauma and the well-regarded Filip Hrgovic. Itauma has long expressed his frustration in his ability to get a notable opponent, but he\u2019s got one here and it presents an opportunity for him to validate all of the hype behind him.<\/p>\n
So when Itauma (14-0, 12 KOs) was asked about this fight at the event, he plain-spoken fight acknowledged that now is the time for him to step up to the plate.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a big test. Of course, it\u2019s my toughest fight\u201d Itauma said. \u201cFilip Hrgovic ain\u2019t no mug. I think the beautiful thing about boxing is that Hrgovic has achieved so much in this sport, has beat so many well-known guys in not just British boxing, but boxing in general, and he\u2019s won an Olympic bronze medal. And I guess the beautiful thing about my position is I can strip him away from all of that. So I\u2019m ready to come when it comes to the day, I\u2019ll be ready.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hrgovic (20-1, 15 KOs) would soon thereafter be asked about his thoughts on taking on Itauma during his meteoric rise, to which he responded in biblical fashion.<\/p>\n
\u201cHistory said that Moses never reached the promised land and history repeats,\u201d Hrgovic said. \u201cMy job is to stop him to reach the promised land to become champion, to become next star that he got all the attributes to be. He has country behind him, promotion, so since beginning of his career they\u2019re building him into the big star. Obviously he got the talent, speed and punching power and everybody predicting he\u2019s the next big star in boxing and I\u2019m here to stop him.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course I believe in myself. I\u2019m too tough, too experienced guy, too strong for him. And I believe in myself that I will beat him. This fight, a lot of guys write me off and saying that he\u2019s too quick and he\u2019s too dangerous but I definitely believe, and I\u2019m coming for a win.\u201d<\/p>\n
You can watch the full opening press conference in the video link at the top!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Today marked the official kick off press conference for an August 29 heavyweight fight between rising star Moses…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":753469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,1920,85],"class_list":["post-753468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=753468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/753469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=753468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=753468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=753468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}